Janeway looked at the history that was living and breathing in front of her, and remembered the 37's for a moment. "And why did Q take you away?"
"You're asking me if I'm able to read Q's mind," she reminded her, evenly.
"To be frank, Kathryn," Q spoke then, sitting cross legged across from the women, "It was my protege Amanda who notified me of a problem. She was...vacationing as it were, and became aware of the problem. She...interfered."
The girl cast a cold glare at Q. "She would have helped millions of women if her interference were directed at another person."
"Did you want a man named Pants to run your backward country? On a backward planet with your backward species?" Q raised an eyebrow and pursed his mouth in disapproval. (Pants is how many people (who speak with a southern accent) in Pence's homestate of Indiana pronounce that last name and I think that tidbit is hysterical. Visiting there I spat soda out my nose when I heard someone other than my cousin say it that way. I thought she was joking about it- she wasn't!)
"Why did you bring Shay here?"
"It seemed preferable to her current position."
Watching the expression on the woman's face, Kathryn believed she could hear her thoughts. This girl wanted to stay on Voyager.
"Shay can you tell me what was going on in your life that was so dire that Q took you?"
"Well, certainly there are millions worse off than me, starving to death, in concentration camps, children taken from their parents and held in cages, girls who have their vaginas sewn closed without any anesthesia because that's easier than teaching men not to rape..."
"It's nothing compared to that."
She shrugged, her curled blond hair puffing outward slightly at the movement, the curls springing up and then releasing. "I got raped and abused a lot as a child," her tone was conversational and nonchalant, as if this were commonplace, "thrown down the stairs every day till the bones in my neck fused together. The constant rapes rendered me unable to have children and destroyed muscles in my thighs and pelvis."
Janeway felt her muscles tighten like a body of ancient armor around herself, her shoulders became titanium sheets. Every muscle tensed to fight, to protect.
She felt cold, frozen. Hearing this history in person gave her such a feeling of revulsion, glimpsing an aspect of history that sickened her, and here it was in person and yet she was just as helpless to stop it. She wasn't entirely sure she was breathing, nor that her heart was beating. She was listening, feeling with her entire body what felt like the millenia of the abuse of her ancestors, in the flesh.
"And now?" her voice sounded both distant and choked.
"I moved away from him, two thousand miles away. But he found me, moved near me and started to stalk me. I got a restraining order," she paused, adding, "a legal document designed to provide protection against abusive people."
The Captain felt compassion but also bewilderment. She voiced her confusion in a kind voice, "Could you not get protection at the time of the abuse?"
"My parents would lie. My neck and leg injuries are from gymnastics accidents, falling from uneven bars or the beam. Gymnasts are always covered in . Other adults would rather believe that than the truth, so they turned a blind eye."
With a heartfelt sigh she added, "My family protected my brother, because he was a family member."
Janeway felt as if she'd been punched in the gut as that sank in.
"Your own family chose to protect your abuser over yourself?" It was unfathomable.
Flores simply nodded, unfazed by any of this. "When your own family shows you they don't believe you, it's impossible to believe anyone else ever would. A courtroom of strangers? Lawyers are notorious for destroying rape victims on the stand. No one wants to go through that without support, especially a child. And as an adult, knowing my entire family would defend my rapist and call me liar would never look good. Rapists with DNA and video evidence against them are set free by the millions. I would certainly get no justice with no evidence but my word against his and injuries that could be explained away by eager attorneys."
Janeway felt her body shaking uncontrolably. She didn't know why this was happening, or what to do to stop it. So she simply sat, hoping no one else noticed. Or if they did that they would have the decency to ignore it.
"Tell Janeway about the stories." Q was goading her, practically salivating in anticipation. He clearly knew more about the situation than Janeway. She was convinced that he was using this poor young woman as his entertainment, and nothing more.
With a sigh and eyeroll of annoyance, she complied.
"One of my favorite things to do was read fanfiction when I wasn't watching you on tv- that's anonymous stories created about tv shows or books," she explained. "When I went to court for my restraining order, his lawyer was there. He said that my rapist had found my stories that talked about abuse and he handed me a summons that said he was suing me for getting a restraining order and talking about him on the internet."
"Did you write stories about what he did to you?" Q was choking back laughter. Not being privy to what Q knew, Kathryn glared at him in open disapproval. To her mind he was making fun of an abused woman.
"No."
"How was he able to find these stories written by other people? And why would he think that you wrote them, talking about him?" Janeway's question.
"He said he searched for certain terms to see if I was talking about him on the internet-"
"I'm sorry, internet?" Her rememberances of history didn't include that term. She was still shaking, and distracted by it.
"A method of sharing information, documents, video, media accessible to millions on a computer screen."
Then she continued, "And he found fanfiction stories that mentioned the same kind of abuse he'd done to me."
"Do you know who wrote the stories?" Q asked this question, a knowing smirk on his face.
"No."
"So your rapist thought strangers on your internet were talking about him!" Q didn't hold back his laughter this time. In fact he materialized a group from a 50's supper club, all uproariously laughing along with him. Finally Shay grinned, her body tension releasing, shoulders dropping.
Tension broken, Janeway found she was no longer shaking. Grateful, she stood up and began to pace the room.
"He thinks strangers are talking about his crimes." Janeway voiced that idea slowly.
"He thinks strangers are talking about his crimes," she muttered the phrase again thinking. The law had never been a strong interest of hers yet...
"If he thought documents of abuse were speaking of him, that would seem to indicate that he did in fact commit those crimes."
Shay smiled.
"He's paranoid." Q yawned, done with it all, it seemed.
Shay agreed but answered back, "Criminals usually are, especially when they think they're being exposed."
But Janeway was quick to correct them both. "That criminal is a megalomaniac."
Flores cast a sidelong glance at Q. "Something Q's very familiar with."
Janeway began to laugh, still engrossed in her own thoughts.
"He would have no case! If the writers are anonymous there is no way to prove who is being spoken of. Every detail of one's life could be mentioned and it would be impossible to prove anything."
Q rose to his feet and with a flourish began applauding her. Janeway stopped laughing abruptly. "Stop it," she barked. Looking intentionally wounded, he did so, but not without every annoying bit of over-acting imagineable to convey his hurt to her.
She glanced at Flores. The woman did not look as relieved as Janeway thought she should. "Is there something to this that I am missing?"
"If only that were true. All it takes is to cast a shadow of doubt. And... if you're rich,like he is now, anything is legal, and winnable.
"But, he's taking you to trial because he thinks complete strangers are talking about him!"
Q was quick to correct her. "He thinks she's talking about him."
"But complete strangers are talking about their own abusers-" Shay added to Q's statement.
Janeway cast both hands up, flustered and enfuriated by this insanity. It could not be allowed.
"Which means he's guilty because no innocent person things a description of criminal is referring to them, unless they committed the crime!"
"I'd say that's entertaining." Q said this, floating in the air like a cheshire cat.
"It is. Or, it would be," she sank back into the cushions of the couch she was still sitting upon, "if it wasn't so emotionally and physically taxing on me."
Janeway'd been evaluating the girl. She was slim with long curly blond hair and bright blue eyes, or rather eyes that used to be bright. Her eyes now looked dark and sunken in to her face, the whites of her eyes having a bluish tinge. And when she'd moved her head Kathryn could see that spots of hair were gone all over her head. Fallen out from stress, was her best guess.
"I didn't speak of him before, but I'm more than willing to do so now."
Janeway saw a familiar glint in the girl's eyes. It was one she recognized in herself when she wanted something badly, or wanted to make someone pay for a wrongdoing.
Almost casually she reached for a PADD on her end table and passed it to Shay.
"Would you like to write it down?"
Shay met her gaze, a smile of anticipatory glee barely disguised on her lips, anger flashing in her eyes. She grabbed the PADD without another word and activated it.
"I wasn't talking about him before and he's suing me because he thinks I am. I don't suppose I'd have anything to lose if I really started talking about him. And if I do, he'll be really sorry. Because there is a lot that he did to me that these strangers on the internet never mentioned."
Q's smile was just as anticipatory as that of the women. "I look forward to reading it, my dear."
Shay's smile vanished. "You won't," she replied. "Because if I wrote the truth of what he really did, you wouldn't have the stomach to read it."
"But imagine if it were published where he could easily read it. I'm certain as obsessed and paranoid as he is, he's likely," how do you old mortals put it?" He was referring to Flores... "ah yes, combing the internet."
"I bet he's reading this right now." Shay answered, smiling like the Grinch, thrilled to finally get her revenge.