Picard guessed he was due for a confrontation when Counselor Troi followed him out of the observation lounge and across the bridge. She hung back when he entered his ready room, giving him time to settle, likely. The tell-tale chime followed a few moments later.

"Come," Picard said, sounding as irritable as he felt. It wasn't as if he could hide his irritableness from her anyway.

She entered, silent until the door swished shut. Cool and straight-backed, the image of formality. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just come out and say it. I think we should schedule a time for us to talk."

Picard raised his eyebrows and pretended to be busy at his desk. "Talk."

"Yes. An hour, maybe longer if it's needed. Captain," she joined her hands at her waist, "I'm concerned you're under a great deal of stress."

"Stress."

"I'm sensing that, yes. For the last several days, it seems to be getting worse."

And it seemed that everyone was reading his mind lately. Had they no thoughts of their own to entertain them? He struggled for a response, for a way to reassure her that he would be just fine and there was no need for any sort of psychoanalysis, thank you. He managed a thin smile.

"Thank you for your concern, Counselor. It's appreciated. But I can assure you I am under no more stress than that which normally besets a captain of a starship."

She came forward and slipped into one of his chairs. Merde, he thought. She folded her hands on the desk, calmly, while he tried to read Lieutenant La Forge's report on a scheduled engine maintenance. He kept re-reading the first sentence.

"Does this have anything to do with Q?" she asked.

"Q?"

"You mentioned last week that he had visited you. I haven't felt you leave the ship, but of course where Q is concerned that doesn't mean much. Is he still visiting you?"

"Still visiting me?"

Troi lowered her chin, pressing him with a glare. "Captain, you're repeating me."

"Repeating you," he said, simply to be annoying.

"Yes. It's a common defensive mechanism. It usually indicates you aren't comfortable with the line of questioning."

He set the report aside. "I'm sorry. I'm a little busy, Counselor."

"I understand. And we can speak at another time—"

"We don't need to speak at all."

His voice snapped a little more than he would have liked. She didn't flinch. She had raised her chin again, her eyes all-understanding, all-patient, betraying, he was sure, more telepathy on her end. Though empathy was the correct word, wasn't it.

Picard wished they would stay out of his mind. He wished empaths and telepaths and Qs never existed, that he could simply mind his starship as it pleased him. Years he had spent working for this place of authority only to be treated like a child. Worse: a thing, with a mind as accessible as one of Mr. La Forge's reports.

"I'm sensing anger," the Counselor said coolly.

Picard rolled back in his chair. An emotion had taken him, a need, suddenly, to flee the room. He controlled it, suppressed it expertly, and looked to Deanna to see if she'd noticed.

She had. Her surprise was unmistakable—if tactfully contained—in her slightly cocked eyebrow.

"If you'll excuse me, Counselor. I ah—I remember I've missed an appointment." He took Mr. La Forge's report and left.

In the turbolift the inevitable embarrassment washed over him. She can see you're lying, you fool. And here, now, she could even see he was embarrassed. He hid in his quarters for a half an hour until the invented appointment was "finished," and then with all the nerves of a tawdry schoolboy he returned to the bridge.

She was leaning over his chair saying something to Riker. Riker laughed, and she was smirking as she leaned back to make room for Picard. Picard took his seat, wondering: Was it something about him that they had laughed about? "Stressed," the Counselor had described him earlier. Had the others noticed? Was he the butt of every crewmember's joke?

"Hello to you too, sir," Riker said.

"Oh. Sorry, Number One. Preoccupied."

Counselor Troi said nothing, always the consummate professional. It occurred to Picard that of course she hadn't been talking about him behind his back, that it was an extension of his stress that he had thought so. Stress bred worry bred paranoia. For he was stressed; she was right about that. And stressed moreso than usual; she was right about that too.

Q had been getting to him. Every evening Picard had nowhere to go but straight into Q's mousetrap. Even an idea of switching rooms or avoiding his quarters altogether he knew to be futile. If the point of Q being here was their interaction, and Q had said it was, he would simply alter the rules.

Picard sighed, loud and long, and leaned to his left.

"Tomorrow," he whispered to Deanna. "0800 hours?"

He could hear the smugness in her voice. "I'll clear my schedule."

Picard leaned back, but instead of melting like he had expected the stress was still there, still a palpable band around his rib cage. He realized why: 'tomorrow' was after 'tonight,' and tonight was the source of all his problems.

He leaned left again. Deanna straightened and inclined her head.

"Counselor, do you think we could speak… now?"

They met in the observation lounge. It was less formal, less worrisome considering the sudden nature of their leaving the bridge. The last thing Picard wanted was to worry the crew. They took their usual seats, Picard at the head, Deanna on his left, and she gave him ample time to collect his thoughts.

He stared at their reflections in the long, obsidian table and soon realized it was easier just to start.

"It's as you guessed. Q has been visiting me beyond that first night. Nothing I say will put him off. The reason you haven't sensed my ah, disconcertion… is because he's been taking me out of time." He paused to see if she understood, although of course she didn't. This was Q and therefore nothing about it made sense. "He removes me from the timeline for the space of an hour. I'm still in my quarters; nothing's changed as far as I'm concerned. We talk. Sometimes we say nothing at all. And then, after an hour… he leaves." Picard shrugged, not sure how else to elaborate.

"You talk," she said.

"Yes. He seems to want to talk to me. He's said it isn't about the crew, I made sure of that, but why me is anyone's guess." He muttered the last part, finding it difficult to make eye contact with her anymore. He searched the room for something else, beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake in coming here. Perhaps a morning appointment would have been more discreet.

"Q has always singled you out. In some circumstances I would say he even thought of you as a friend."

Picard laughed. "We are not friends."

"No. But like-minded, perhaps?"

"Counselor. This is the entity who was threatening to wipe out humanity not four years ago, and could have done it. Like-minded? Even now he's informed me he will visit me indefinitely, whether I acknowledge him or not. I have no choice in the matter. No options. No recourse."

Her lips thinned. "Is Q… intimate with you?"

"Good lord no!" Shock raised his eyebrows. "Certainly not."

"So you're telling me these advances are purely platonic."

"It would seem. Rather it is."

She nodded. "Has he told you what he wants? Some reason for these meetings?"

That was usually the case, wasn't it. Q had always made his intentions known. Nothing so vague as wanting to "talk." Picard perused through his memories of the last week, but all the visits seemed to meld into one. He remembered demanding for Q to leave, angrier than he'd been in a long time, and the sunken feeling when Q had not. It had been two evenings since that one, since the evening when Q had invaded his mind.

"He seemed interested in a sculpture on my table. He wanted me to tell him where I received it. He lectured me on memories and claimed to be curious about my own. Some test of his, I'm sure. Now that you mention it, this seems to be a common theme with him. Him wanting to prove we are more alike than I realize. It's preposterous."

"It is."

At her plain, unabashed agreement, Picard felt relieved.

"I don't know why he's visiting me, no. I wish I did."

She asked then what he had told Q about the sculpture, and Picard answered her tactfully. And he answered her next question about what Q had said about memories, tactful with that one too. He wasn't being dishonest, just wringing all possible emotion from the story. There were some things too personal to reveal, even to a Counselor whose professional career depended on her telling no one any of this. But he told her all of the facts, at least. Or all except one. He didn't tell her about Q's invasion of his mind. The situation was accosting enough without that detail. Q's words still troubled him.

You don't have to fear me, Jean-Luc. I would never hurt you.

Was fear what this was about? About ridding Picard of his fear of Q? Picard wasn't even sure he did fear Q.

Troi was saying something. "…not to think of him only in terms of his power, to treat him like anyone else, a person with thoughts, with feelings. And as such this seems to be a classic case of one person reaching out to another."

"By why?" Picard said. "And despite my express wishes to the contrary? Surely if he wanted to 'teach' me something he would come out and say it. He's done that before, and sooner than this." Picard shook his head. "I just wish I could know how to…" He searched for the words. "How to discourage him in this."

"Maybe," she said, folding her hands on the table. "Maybe that's a good place to start."

Picard frowned.

"To stop trying to discourage him," she said.