A History of Not Ending

Beverly Crusher absently tapped her fingers on the table as she went over another calibration report from her staff. The report represented the winning side of her losing battle against the boredom of both her staff and herself. The Enterprise was conducting another ferrying mission of a group of Rather Important Delegates to some Even More Important Negotiations that had to be run Six Weeks Distant at Warp Five. They were currently miring in the midst of week three. She scowled.

"Is the report that exciting, Doctor?"

The familiar timbre of the voice already bringing a warm smile to her face, Beverly glanced up. "The opposite, actually. And we have three more weeks of this, and then six more on the return trip. And we all have you to thank for this."

Jean-Luc Picard raised his eyebrows. "Me? What have I got to do with this? It's Command who decides where and when we go."

"If you weren't so good at diplomacy, we'd be out exploring instead of you refereeing the mindless nattering of huffy diplomats."

Holding her gaze, the captain strode into the office and took a seat in a chair across from Beverly's desk. He crossed his legs before answering, "If I've done my job correctly, the diplomats wouldn't be huffy. In fact, I think it's my chief medical officer who's getting huffy. Downright bitter, if you ask me."

"Oddly enough, I didn't ask you." She settled back into her chair and tabbed on her terminal so she could input her reviews. Without looking, she continued, "Not that I don't mind some distracting verbal sparring, but I should be getting back to these fantastically exciting reports. Don't you have something captainly you should be doing?" Question given, she glanced over to watch for the non-verbal answer.

Picard frowned slightly before beginning to fidget with his hands.

As she'd suspected, he wouldn't give a verbal answer because he had none. "Admit it it, Jean-Luc, you're just as bored as the rest of us."

He glowered.

She smirked. Perhaps she could make a weeks-long game of this teasing, and then the time wouldn't be quite so filled with boredom. Perhaps she could even spur him to bring up the subject of 'them' again so she could shock him with the answer she'd neglected to give him seven months before. She had no idea why she'd answered with what she had, and no clue as to why she'd left his quarters. In fact, she almost suspected that she'd been controlled by some higher-powered beings with an entirely different agenda from hers—namely, to keep her and Jean-Luc separate for an interminable amount of time. Well, she thought to herself, that time must come to an end in these three to nine weeks, give or take, and depending on the powers-that-be.

"How can I help you, Doctor?" asked a nurse from the doorway.

For a moment, Beverly could've sworn she'd never met this nurse before in her life. Then she was certain that she couldn't imagine Isra not being on her staff. However, she was certain that she'd not summoned the lieutenant. "Excuse me?"

"I mean, in finding ways to help us pass the time we have, aside from wallowing in boredom." She gestured at the padd of reports in Beverly's hand. "Like those endlessly exciting reports."

Beverly wondered if her sarcasm was catching—and if it was, if she could find a cure for it. Goodness, she was bored. But she didn't recall voicing her boredom to Isra, much less asking for her opinion on it. She said as much.

Isra frowned, and then sighed. "Oh, all right." Then she snapped her fingers and the three of them found themselves in a room—at least, what Beverly and Picard suspected was a room—that was entirely blank. The color of the walls, floor, and ceiling were white, but the color was probably only a trick of the eyes, attempting to provide some sort of visual information to the brain that made sense.

Ignoring his surroundings, the captain rounded on Isra and practically threw the name at her. "Q!"

The lieutenant heaved the sigh of a being exasperated with the small minds and tiny emotions of mortals, a sigh that was very much Q-like. "I am not Q," she said, quite indignantly, if a Q were capable of being indignant.

"You most certainly are Q."

She made a dismissive motion with her finely tapered fingers. "Fine. I'm not your Q. Is that better?"

Beverly raised an eyebrow. "Does he know you refer to him that way?"

Isra—or Q—or whoever this being was, smirked in the same way Beverly had smirked at Jean-Luc minutes before. The smirk of a woman getting the best of her man and delighting in it. "He does now."

"Who are you?"

"I am Q's significant other. I have been for..." she trailed off, pausing as if she were pondering something, though beings of her exact nature need not to pause to ponder, though they were not beyond adding a bit of dramatic effect. "Forever."

Both Picard and Crusher replied immediately and in unison: "I'm sorry."

"It's not as bad as you think."

"It's worse?" Beverly asked. She could hardly fathom any being having a relationship with Q for even the most minute amount of time, much less what was, in all practicality, eternity.

"Not any worse than your non-relationship relationship with the captain here," Q replied. "Oh, and stop wondering what to call me. I'm Q, but to sort it out for you in your little mortal mind, refer to me as Lady Q."

With that, Beverly's memory of a nurse called Isra vanished. "So that was all your doing?"

"What?" Lady Q blinked. "Oh! You mean the episode where you turned tail and ran at the prospect of a relationship with poor Jean-Luc. No, no, that wasn't my doing. Even I'm not that evil, nor is Q. Besides, it would be much more fun watching the two of you go about attempting to experience domestic bliss and finding it anything but blissful. Imagine, two stubborn, outspoken, bull—"

Picard interrupted and said, "I assume it's much like your own relationship with Q."

Lady Q deigned Picard with what seemed to be a genuine smile. "Nicely played, Jean-Luc. Nicely played. Too bad I won't bestow you with an answer. Though, if you must know, this is my game this time, not Q's. The universe needs saving again." Lady Q turned away from the captain and addressed the doctor. "Except this time, Beverly, you've been drafted to do the saving. Jean-Luc's been demoted to your sidekick."

Beverly considered the prospect for a moment then asked, "Does he at least get a cape?"

A snap of Lady Q's fingers and a garish purple silk cape appeared on the captain's shoulders.

Picard harrumphed and scowled deeply at both women. "Very funny."

The doctor barely held her laughter back, but managed to in order to console Jean-Luc's now-fragile dignity. "I was kidding," she said to Lady Q.

"I know." Lady Q waved her hand and the cape disappeared. "But the look on his face! Now I see why Q loves to tease him so much. However... I decided to pick you to save the world since Jean-Luc always gets that role, like he's the only being in the universe capable of saving it."

"I don't see why your kind don't just do all the saving since you always seem to see the end coming."

"What would be the fun in that?" Lady Q asked. She clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "Now, as for your new mission. As I said before, you've got to stop the end of the universe. Again. I realize it's old hat to you, Jean-Luc, but this is Beverly's first time—"

"First time?" Beverly asked. "You say that as if there will be more times."

"Perhaps. If you save the universe this time."

And that time, Beverly scowled.

Lady Q continued, "The Mayans prophesied that the universe would come to the end in 2012. Specifically, on December 21st, 2012. They surmised that—"

"That date has already passed and the universe obviously continued onward. I don't see your point," Picard said. "As for—"

Lady Q mouthed the word 'paradox' at Picard and he promptly shut up. Lady Q went on, "As I was saying, the Mayans surmised that on that day, the magnetic poles would flip and the world as they knew it would end. The Mayans, for some reason, had this spectacular talent of being right in whatever they prophesied—even when they were wrong. They had more information about this particular apocalypse, but it was lost. In order to keep the incorrect prophecy from happening, I need the two of you to find the lost piece of the puzzle. Some moron claimed to have found it, but it was a hoax, and a bad one at that. However, enough people believed it, including Mayans, so now it will become true if it isn't disproved. Your people call these puzzle pieces codices—codex in the singular—and have this nasty habit of losing track of them. The first three will lead you to the fourth one which, of course, is the most important one."

"What do these codices look like?" the captain asked.

Beverly supplied the answer. "They're folded books starting from the pre-Columbian Mayan civilization. They're written in Mayan hieroglyphic script on Mayan paper which, by the way, was made from the inner bark of the wild fig tree. This Mayan paper was called huun and was much better than the Roman papyrus. The books themselves are the products of professional scribes working under the patronage of the Howler Monkey Gods. There are only three known codices: the Dresden Codex, the Madrid Codex, and the Paris Codex. The Paris Codex, by the way, was found in a rubbish bin in a Paris library."

"Not a very nice way to treat someone's scripture. What is it with you French people?" Lady Q said to Picard.

He ignored her and stared at Beverly. "When did you learn that?"

The doctor frowned. "Never. I mean... just now." She shot an accusatory look at Lady Q.

"I did a brain dump of sorts for you," the immortal being explained. "To make sure that Jean-Luc doesn't take over as the hero and you're relegated once again to sidekick. Without, I might add, a cape. Of any sort."

"That's horrible. No cape at all?"

"None."

"Damn. I suppose I'd better lead, then." Beverly turned to Jean-Luc, who kept studying her as if she'd grown three heads, a tail, had become a Q, and had declared herself the goddess of the underworld.

"That's Xibalba," Lady Q supplied. "At least to the Mayans."

"Right," said Beverly, wondering how to explain to Jean-Luc that she was merely rolling with the punches, as they could do nothing to stop the Q. Besides, she was beginning to think that she might actually be getting along with this Lady Q. At the very least, they had a sense of humor in common. Compared to Q, Lady Q was downright pleasant.

"Damn right I am," Lady Q said, commenting on Beverly's internal monologue. "But, you two must get to work. Time's counting itself down to zero while we dally. You'll have to find the first three codices before you'll find the fourth, and last, one. Why? Because each one says where you can find the following one." She snapped her fingers and three doors appeared in what Beverly guessed counted as a wall in this blank space. "I'll let you choose your own starting point. Pick a door. Oh, and as an added bonus, you can peek in each door before choosing which one you'd like to go through."

"The lady or the tiger," Picard muttered.

"You'll take care to notice that I've given you three doors, not two, and there are no tigers waiting behind those doors."

"What about beautiful women?" he asked.

"That depends," Lady Q said, "on who walks through the door first."

Beverly smirked at the captain. He scowled back at her, showing his displeasure of being outwitted. Taking on her role as leader, Beverly opened each door in turn, Picard close on her heels. Opening the first door let through a blast of stinging, cold snow that bit into their eyes and skin as if alive. She quickly slammed that door shut. The landscape behind the second door began to howl at them as soon as the door opened. Hot sand rode on the sound of the howl, digging into their skin and tearing at their eyes. Again, Beverly slammed the door. They carefully opened the third, shielding their eyes from whatever might whip through the open doorway.

Nothing whipped through. The couple dropped their hands and looked inside to see a placid jungle ecosystem, laden with lush green underbrush, soaring trees, and sprinkled with brightly colored flowers. "We have a winner," Beverly said.

Lady Q nodded. "Off you go, then. A hint for you—you'll find the codices in caves. I hope you like spelunking. Good luck." She disappeared.

The door shut on the blank room behind them. Beverly and Jean-Luc found themselves surrounded by the jungle and and the daunting task of saving the universe.