I thought a while on this... you know what I'm not the trek writer who's really good at this. So I'm going to just try my damn best here. But how the f can I get some girl or woman from our time to the 24 century? Remember I am not the writer who's good at coming up with that sort of thing. But let me try... (yes you're hearing me thinking right now)
Got it!
Q! (thank god for Q for those of us who can't spin different centuries into gold)
Q minced, pranced and alternately marched onto the bridge of the USS Voyager.
Janeway looked sidelong at him and grimaced visibly, as if she were looking at a piece of rotting flesh, or her least favorite Academy professor.
She did all but shudder at the thought of seeing that particular professor again and had to admit that seeing Q was a more welcome sight. Nonetheless, she physically moved sideways in her seat, away from Q as he stepped closer to her. But then she forced her feelings back down as if shoving a down quilt into a narrow space, a lot of force, but not much good effect. Still she brusquely stood up, true feelings sufficiently stuffed, although hiding them entirely wasn't necessary, Q already knew how much she despised him.
"What are you doing on my bridge?"
"Dispensing with the pleasantries, Kathryn?" His eyes were wide, hand to his chest in obviously mock shock.
"You'd make a terrible actor, Q," she spoke the first thought that came to her. She was already at her annoyance capacity in the two seconds he'd been standing there.
Chacotay was on his feet next to her, but Janeway shook her head at him. He could take over, she supposed, when she was so sick of Q she couldn't stand it any longer.
Q shrugged, unconcerned. "The play's the thing, as I'm told," he answered smiling, but Janeway noticed, not a full smile. She returned his look with one of banal loathing, standing motionless and saying nothing but that being said with her eyes, which isn't fit to repeat here.
"I've come bearing gifts!" He forced a grin then, she knew it, and appeared in a flash in a traditional Santa suit, minus the beard. But even he didn't seem to be enjoying himself.
Finally Tuvok broke the silence. "Please state why you are here. If necessary I will escort you to our brig."
Q gave a sharp laugh. "You know better than that," he chastised. A red ribboned set of toy handcuffs appeared on his console.
In another flash Kathryn expected her friend to disappear. Instead, a young woman was standing next to Q, looking even less enthused than Janeway felt.
(Okay hold on, I'm really reaching for it here, trying to somehow telepathically guess what all these thousands of women would want to hear, if they were Star Trek fans, I guess...)
Chocolate. No Sorry, that's what I'm wanting to hear right now, I'm starving. I'll try again. If I suddenly found myself on the bridge of Voyager with Janeway and my current existence was the equivilent of 10 hells...
"Holy shit, it's Captain Janeway!" The woman's despondent expression turned to one of instant joy. (Well, come on what would you say? I mean I know what you think you'd say, but if you completely unexpectedly were right in front of her when a second before you were standing in line at Starbucks or something? Come on.)
"I'm not used to being addressed in that fashion." (let's pretend Janeway knows modern day swears for what they are, though not familiar with multiple uses ie non-offensive expressions) Janeway gave a cold stare at their second uninvited guest.
The woman in front of her stared at her in the same manner she'd been staring at Q with a moment before. Clearly angry and offended...by her.
"Maybe you should get used to it," the strange woman muttered angrily, all joy gone now, glaring at her.
Janeway noticed the tiniest change in her physical demeanor and realized this woman was more hurt than angry. And too exhausted to pretend.
"Have I offended you in some way?" Clearly she had.
The woman cast her gaze to the deck. "This is not how I pictured me meeting you going." As if her dreams had been crushed. But how would you react if you were suddenly yanked from your own admittedly shitty timeline into one in which your favorite tv character existed? Whether it was a dream or not, she hadn't imagined Janeway's first words to her to be so cold.
Well this sucks.
So she said what she was thinking, exactly what she was thinking. "I didn't imagine meeting you would start off badly. This is not how I pictured meeting you would go."
Comprehension lit Janeway's eyes. She's angry at herself, disappointed and angry. You didn't need a Betazoid to tell you that.
She found this person, who admittedly could either be another Q or simply some poor individual Q'd snatched up from somewhere to use for his own entertainment, to be wary and guarded, but who yet seemed somehow familiar with her.
Janeway gave her most gracious smile to the young woman and took a step towards her in a show of goodwill.
"I'm sorry," she apologized as if she had been at fault, "Do I know you?"
Katheryn gave a quick glance at Q before returning her gaze to the young woman, or, girl, she couldn't tell an age readily. The only thing that was obvious was the woman wasn't from Earth. Or, knowing Q, not Janeway's Earth.
"I..." the woman paused, "I'm not even sure how I got here. Where I'm from you're not real. Your only substance is as a character in a story at worst, and as people's, mostly women's, imagined heroine at best."
Janeway's eyebrows raised at the unexpected praise. "Well," she smiled, "I'm flattered, if a bit surprised."
"And you must admit," Q interrupted her, "that's quite high praise for a human."
Thinking it might do well to explain Q's presence the Captain added looking at the yet unnamed woman, "Q is an entity that greatly enjoys interfering with other species and using them as playthings."
At that the woman's face lit up and she beamed answering readily, "Oh, I know who Q is!" She waved a hand as if this were old news. "He's one of my favorite characters,"her eyes sparkled, "he's so fun!"
Q's eyes nearly popped from his head. "Did you hear that?" He addressed the crew. "She's a fan," he paused for dramatic effect, "of me!"
His chest puffed up like a rooster and he put a hand to his heart, enraptured.
"Get over yourself , Q," Janeway answered.
"But you don't understand, there is a whole planet that worships me!"
The Captain pursed her lips in annoyance directly sounded at Q. "Care to tell us what's going on?" She asked him at the same moment Tom Paris, having visually appraised the young woman decided, "You look like you're from the 20th Century."
"Twenty first," she corrected.
Ignoring Tom, Janeway still looked at Q.
Immediately Q held up his hands as if he'd been beaten. "I saved her from a horrible existence! And you accuse me?"
"I haven't accused you of anything," Kathryn answered shortly, "but I do know your track record."
"Do you?" He cooed and immediately moved closer to her, eyes hooded and hissed suggestively, "What's yours?"
Considering that clear sexual innuendo, Janeway glared him down.
"Answer me, Q!"
"Well, fine," his tone turned casual as if speaking about the weather.
"I saved this girl from," he paused, " admittedly it would have been more saving if I had intervened sooner," he corrected himself, "but nonetheless I still saved her from a horrible fate. I whisked her away from a time period on earth where female victims of rape were being charged for the crimes of their rapists, taken to trial by their own rapists, instead of they taking their rapists to trial."
Janeway drew back in horror. Earth's history of violence against women, particularly rape, was well documented. And she knew well the very beginning of the 21st Century and its barbaric 360 on the rights and protection of women. Not that men weren't still raping women at that point in history, they certainly were, but men taking the women they themselves raped to court, and winning, that was a marked change. Of course in other parts of the world at that time women were still being stoned jailed and even burned alive if found to be a victim of rape.
Janeway was aware a particularly sickening 21st Century truth taking place not long before the Bell Riots, due to its happening in her home state of Indiana. In Indiana at that time women were required to submit documentation to the government if having any sort of surgery to prove they weren't in fact getting an abortion or having a miscarriage either one having been determined by the nearly all male government as being against the law.
(true. Thanks to a governor named Pence and thanks for my cousin for this info- she was forced to sign documentation that would be submitted to the state to prove she was having surgery for cancer and not getting an abortion or miscarrying,because in either case she'd be required to pay for a funeral and submit that proof to the state as well, otherwise it would be taken as proof that she wanted an abortion. A woman who miscarried but didn't provide proof to the state was sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder. Thanks again Pence for signing that law.)
Janeway stood stock still and slack jawed as she took all this information in. Maybe it was better not to take Q at his word.
"I'm sorry," she realized her usual manners were lax and turned back to the now wide-eyed woman in front of her. She was now looking much happier than she had been when first 'whisked' there. "I"m Kathryn Janeway. May I ask who you are and what, as it appears I do have to ask, what year was it before you were brought here?"
"I'm-"
Janeway held up a hand to stop further speech as she considered that if what Q said were true, that perhaps speaking openly on the bridge in front of the crew was not in this woman's best interest, as social mores of that time still stigmatized anyone for speaking out about abuse.
"Please," she smiled again at the as yet nameless woman, "perhaps it would be best to speak in my ready room.
Janeway stood in the readyroom doorway having escorted the woman inside. She called back to Q, "Stay out there if you wish, this conversation really doesn't involve or require you."
With that she stepped back and the doors whooshed shut before her.
She motioned the woman to the couch and was headed there herself when, just as Janeway'd expected, Q appeared in the room.
"I should say this conversation involves me," he corrected with a haughty tone. He'd simply appeared in the room, having chosen not to use the door. "If it weren't for me, this girl wouldn't be here now."
"Fine Q, but sit down and be silent, if you can."
Then she turned all attention to the young woman.
"Now, please. Tell me who you are and where and when you are from."
"My name is Shay Flores, I'm 25 and come from California. It's the year 2018 and Donald Trump is President."
Q grimaced in disgust and shuddered.
Janeway smiled cordially. "I'm pleased to meet you."
"Now, how do you know who I am? And is Q correct in what he said? Can you shed any light on that?"