Q was not in the booth when Picard looked for him. Picard felt a surge of unease until he found Q slouched by the fireplace. He was alone there, and the guests who occupied that area before now occupied all other parts of the bar. The room had flipped to suit Q's changing mood. Q's eyes, trained upon the fire, were both more brooding and more tired than ever. Picard took a menu with him. He felt an old pro at this, now.

"Excuse me, sir. Have you been offered a menu?"

"No."

Picard extended it, but Q ignored him. "Wonderful," Picard said. "And will there be another joining you tonight?"

"I'm familiar with your cellar. I'll have the canari noir 23."

"I'll have it brought out."

Behind the bar, Picard asked Josh to make it so. He took a wineglass and a clean cloth. It gave his hands something to do as he glanced discreetly in Q's direction. This was not the Q who had started this game; that was obvious. Something had changed in Q's resetting. Perhaps Q's reluctance to continue was coloring the play. Perhaps it was that he knew how easily Picard would win. He didn't know that now, of course, but before, and perhaps his knowing had upset him. What was the saying? Woken him up on the wrong side of the bed?

Well, Picard thought wryly, that was just too bad.

He felt like preemptively celebrating, probably because of how annoying Q would find it in retrospect. Would the present Q even wonder, for instance, why the owner of the bar was popping a bottle of champagne, was giving a toast, was leading the bar in a rousing pub song? Such an eager display of happiness would only worsen Q's mood and further cement Picard's victory.

… Perhaps. Perhaps not. But Picard didn't need to gloat. He simply needed to win, cleanly, quickly, and he could do that now.

When Q was halfway through his glass, Picard went to him again.

"So tell me. This isn't your first visit? You seem familiar to me."

"Do I? I suppose I've been here before. A long time ago."

"Well we're pleased you could return. You're welcome here as often as you like."

Q waved his hand as though he'd had enough of Picard's false generosity. He sat straighter. "I once frequented the wineries in this area, two, three times a week. I would perform magic tricks of a sort. Would you like to see?"

That startled Picard. When he found his words, it was too late. The trick was already done.

Q snapped and the wine in his glass emitted a steady purple light which flickered across the mantlepiece, the ceiling, across Q's face. Q squinted up at Picard, finding the light there too, no doubt. His mood had not changed. He still seemed sad, even bored as he snapped again and the color changed to a deep blue. A third snap, with concentration, Q's lips pursed: the wine glass shattered.

A bright yellow liquid spilled everywhere.

Picard crouched to the floor, dabbing the rug with his napkin. "I'm sorry," Q said, exaggerated and false. "That was clumsy. Look at you, cleaning up my mess. When you're finished with that, is it too much to ask for another glass? I promise, no more magic from me."

Picard was too concerned to fake surprise. Q had intentionally botched the trick. Why? Perhaps he was not so unhappy as he seemed. Perhaps he was playing.

"Certainly," Picard answered, cleaning the table now.

"You're not impressed," Q said. "I admit to being out of practice. I was famous for it, once."

Picard did not meet his eyes. Safer to resort to his old strategy. Subservient and—what was the other word?—demure? "Perhaps that's why you seem familiar."

"I don't think so. As I said, it was a long time ago. They amused my friend, and me in turn. She would have liked it here. It's hardly my preference, but we frequented bars like this one. She died. A year ago today."

Picard sat back on his ankles, flipping the stained cloth over his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Q inhaled, and nodded, and gazed around the room. "Well. There was nothing to be done for it."

Was this his new strategy? Was Picard supposed to be curious?

"I'll bring more wine," Picard said.

"And another glass."

"Of course."

In the cellar, Picard's thoughts were troubled, none of the smug victory of before. Q was speaking more, damn him. He had no one to do the speaking for him. And of course Q wouldn't leave himself dour; to have any chance at victory he must be in some mood to speak. Edwen, was that her name? Q had killed the poor woman off. It wasn't at all what Picard had meant, though Q would blame him for not being more specific. Then again she might not be killed, not in the sense of murder. They might have moved further into the future, Q and he. But it was pointless thinking about it morally. Even if the woman had been altered and destroyed, like the wine in Q's trick, Q had distorted reality so much they had in a sense transcended morality.

How Q would love hearing him think that!

As Picard ascended the cellar steps, another thought paused him. What if Q was not in the dark? What if Q had remained in possession of his wits this time, was laughing at Picard this very moment? What if that was the lesson, somehow? Picard had always trusted Q's honesty, but that Q would make himself so weak as he seemed now… it was not in his nature.

Picard could only make guesses. He had one interaction remaining, and for that he needed to concentrate. With a cautious resolve, he set the wine glass before Q.

Q stared at the ceiling, fingers interlaced. "I was lying before, about her dying. I could have done something about it."

Picard uncorked the bottle of wine, poured from it.

"It was her choice that I didn't," Q continued. "But I didn't have to listen to her. There was nothing in our agreement about that."

He would not flee. He would finish the pour.

"I'm curious. Arthur, is it? If you were going to die, if someone had a medicine to save you, would you take it?"

Picard didn't remember telling Q his name, but he wasn't about to correct him. "Probably. It would depend on my quality of life."

"It would fix all of that. You would feel young again."

"I see. A kind of fountain of youth."

"Yes. A fountain of youth."

"I suppose I would."

"Sit down, Arthur."

Picard sat. He put the bottle between them like some pathetic barrier.

Q leaned forward and moved the bottle aside. "If someone offered to take you places you had never seen before, places no one had ever seen before, would you go?"

Merde. Picard wouldn't find himself in the dead of space again, feeling the crush of a star again. He answered in a quiet voice: a small, dull sound. "If there was time."

Q sighed and fell back in the chair. "My family didn't care for her. They don't care for any of my friends. I've never been certain why. One suggested I could do better, once. But they're dull, all of them, and those that aren't dull, they're exhaustingly manic. They don't see the appeal in settling down. And I don't just take up with anyone. It's rare I feel anything, and rarer for a person, and rarer still to find anyone with an ounce of tenacity where I'm concerned."

"You don't easily make friends," Picard repeated back to him.

"It isn't tenacity. Then I should befriend the most tenacious person in the universe, but that isn't what's happened."

Q wasn't aware. That was obvious now. The bet was still intact, and so Picard took the lull in conversation as an opportunity to extricate himself, slowly. As Q stared into the fireplace, Picard slid himself up and over the arm of the chair. He smoothed down his apron and, lest he insinuate himself into Q's view, decided to leave the wine bottle where it was. But just before he turned away, just before his eyes left Q's, Q's eyes found his.

"Look at you, bored already. How many nights must you hear this, the ramblings of perpetual strangers? Leave if you like. I won't blame you. But know this, Arthur, as you go. I was about to tell you something I've never told anyone."

Picard turned and walked away. At the bar, he closed the divider between front and back. He wiped a trail of water from the counter, then left the rag, pushed from the rag, propelled himself to the hallway, through it, into the room that was his office, the room that had overwhelmed him with thought a reality ago and now it gave him nothing at all. The chair was any chair. The faces on the walls were none that he recognized. He remembered the fire poker inspiring a deluge of memory. Now he could hold it and nothing. He used it to quicken the flames.

He had won. Hadn't he?

Three interactions, over and done. And he should feel excited. He did, a little.

But where was Q? Shouldn't Q appear now, sitting in that chair or leaning against that desk, sulking? Picard looked at the clock: 1910. Nearly two hours to go. And then he sighed, realizing what this was. Realizing his earlier doubt had been answered definitively. Q didn't know this was a game. He could not even know he had lost the game until the clock ran down. That or Picard told him first.

Picard tossed the fire poker into the fireplace, a small act of rebellion, and left for the front room.

But Q wasn't there. The chair at the fireplace was empty.

Picard pushed out the front door. A broad oval of whites stones glowed in the moonlight. Two rundown buildings crouched on one side, and on the other began the rows of the vineyard. A tall figure was lumbering towards them, kicking rocks underfoot.

"Wait," Picard called.

Q turned to look at him sidelong. He held two glasses of wine, one of which he extended to Picard. "I thought you would change your mind."

"There's something I need to tell you," Picard said.

Q drank, and waited, his head cocked to the side. Picard drank too, a full swallow. Q, end this. Q, end this game now. Jean-Luc Picard. Enterprise. Why was he finding it difficult to say? Why had he called out "wait" and not Q's own name?

"I think you've had a little much of your own brew," Q said.

"That's not it."

"Is it the money? Do you need more?"

"I'm sorry for walking away like that," Picard said. "It was rude of me. No, I don't often entertain customers who are so frank. I wanted to apologize. You were nothing if not polite to me. On the whole."

Q's chuckle was quiet. He had been watching Picard patiently, fondly. It reminded Picard, rather uncomfortably, of their first few encounters on the Enterprise. "It's that pesky one year anniversary. I'm not in the politest of moods."

"I can't accept your money. It's a difficult night for you."

"I think you need it a little more than I."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I have a lot of it."

"Ah." Picard nodded. "To having a lot of money." He extended his glass, Q touched it, and they drank.

The talk of money bought him time, time to realize what exactly this niggling feeling was. Q had started out this bet appealing to everything he could think of and then eventually to Picard's curiosity. It hadn't worked back then, but now he was curious, very curious. Shouldn't that rightfully change things? Picard waited for Q to speak, to pick up the breadcrumb he had so obviously dropped between them, but Q did not. Heel scraping stone, he twisted to look at the stars.

"I had an unfortunate anniversary myself this week," Picard said.

"Oh?"

"Yes, my wife left me. Two years ago. It was one of the lowest times of my life. I closed down the winery. I must have sat in front of that fireplace, the one where you and I…? For a month. My daughter brought me food. The other children, our children, wanted nothing to do with me. She convinced them I was a cad, that I had been sleeping with an employee, and they believed her. And she was the one cheating. Your friend, she left you on good terms, I assume?"

"The best."

"But your family. I suppose we can empathize on that."

"To family," Q said, extending his glass. Picard touched it, they drank.

He couldn't wait any longer. He was beginning to feel guilty. Worried, too, that if Q took to him now he might not be allowed the victory. He tapped the rim of his glass. "What was it you were going to tell me… in there?"

"Oh Arthur. I'm afraid you lost your chance."

"I see. So you're going to be a tease then."

Q smiled sadly and moved off. He found a path into the vineyard and Picard followed. It was difficult to see, easier to follow the sound of Q's footsteps. "You've never told anyone. Did I hear that correctly?"

"You did."

"What if I were to tell you something, something I've never told anyone."

"A trade? I'm not sure it would be equitable, this trade."

"It isn't a trade in the strictest sense. A way to pass the time. You leave, we never see each other again. I have the feeling you're a… a student in psychology. I'm not sure I could surprise someone like you anyway. Besides when you first intended to tell me, the thought of equity had not even entered your mind."

Q turned.

Picard stopped cold. In the dark, he could not see Q's features plainly enough to know what was there. Still he felt such guilt beneath Q's implicit gaze. He should end this. Q probably knew already; that was probably the meaning of the stare. Picard should end it first; he would not look so devious that way.

But resentment festered inside him, kept him firm. How many times had Q placed him in this very position? And who was to say Q didn't have this coming? Picard thought of an argument now, a reason for his actions. Whenever these bets ended, Q was always so difficult. And what Picard was doing, right now, was merely for the purpose of cementing his victory. He would not win this with three interactions. He would win with four.

"I'm a student of psychology myself," Picard explained.

"So you are."

"You're surprised," Picard said. "But you said yourself, I must be used to the ramblings of strangers."

Still, Q did not move.

"I'll show you something, this way." Picard passed around Q. It felt hotter, the air near the entity, and he was glad when a little down the path a cool wind struck his face. Of course, he had no idea where he was going. He was betting he would stumble onto something interesting, or something he could pretend to have been interested in. It was a good sign Q was already headed in this direction.

Q's footsteps harmonized with Picard's own. The ground crunched with leaves. Picard waited to be questioned further, but for better or worse he never was. At long last they broke through the vines. Picard found himself atop a bare, rocky hill overlooking a river. The two moons—the names had escaped Picard—painted the surface of the water. A path led down to a tall, oak-ish tree with thick, snaking roots.

"One of my favorite views." After Picard had pronounced this, he settled onto a tree root.

Q reclined next to him. The entity pulled a wine bottle from under the root, pronouncing, "Oh look!" and Picard pretended to be startled. He said the right things too—a joke about recognizing the label and needing to fire an employee tomorrow morning—all the while relieved that Q was in a jovial mood again, that his scrutiny seemed to have passed elsewhere. Perhaps now was the right time. He did not feel so resentful. Q. Enterprise. Picard.

"You must be quite a remarkable magician," Picard said.

"Go on," Q answered, sipping.

"You spoke of reversing the process of aging. Are you a scientist in disguise?"

"A scientist who dabbles in light shows." Q flicked his glass, and with a clink the wine emitted a white light which illuminated the whole valley—only for a moment, something twice as long as a flash. The light faded, and when Q swilled the glass it was gone.

Picard smiled. "How do you do it?"

"Ah, but there's that saying about magicians."

"You're a scientist."

"I'm neither. And both. You're an interesting person, you know that?"

Picard forced a laugh.

"You aren't startled by my 'magic,' for one. For two, I'm still here, talking to you. When I broke the glass in the bar, you didn't react how I would have expected."

"Is the rest of your family talented in this way?"

"And why should that matter?"

"There's the possibility that their negativity is rooted in jealousy."

"No," Q said smartly, setting aside his glass. "That isn't a possibility at all. They don't fully understand me. I don't fully understand myself. Perhaps that's their problem, but it's an easy problem to have, when you're me."

At last Picard was striking on it, the information he sought. This laugh he did not force.

"Something funny?"

"I don't think anyone fully understands themselves. But it's good to hear you say it. And others who come through the bar. It helps us, all of us, feel less isolated."

Q laughed.

"And why are you laughing?"

"And others who come through the bar." Q did not say it menacingly, but Picard was reassured nonetheless when Q topped up Picard's glass and sighed at the scenery.

"Are you going to tell me now?" Picard asked.

"Tell you what?"

"Unfortunately I have no idea." He felt Q looking at him. He knew what was happening, knew he was becoming interesting to Q, but he hoped—no, knew—his anonymity would shroud him. Arthur Weathersby was no captain. Then again, neither was the woman who had died.

They were only a few meters from the river's edge. Q crouched there, letting the water flow across his hand.

"Most people can go their whole lives not understanding themselves and it doesn't matter at all. Stars are born and die. Galaxies dance and become one. But someone like me, I can't afford to be sloppy. It's something I've had brought to my attention quite often lately. And so I find the prospect of puzzlement at myself more than a little disconcerting."

Q's coat brushed against the mud. It was odd seeing him without the Starfleet uniform—almost fascinating under the influence of the wine. Picard looked at his glass, wishing it were full of water.

"You've been so patient." Q spoke over his shoulder, his voice clearer now. "If I tell you, will you promise not to be frightened?"

Good God, Picard thought. Q was going to tell him who he was, who he actually was, as though it would be some grand revelation to him. He must do this on every planet.

"I'm not here for one anniversary. I'm here for two. But the second one, it hasn't happened yet."

"An anniversary that hasn't happened yet."

"Another friend dying."

"You're so certain."

"The other friend, the one I met here, she was hardly unique. Ordinary actually. One of the dozens I've picked up over time. With an infinite sample, it isn't hard to find someone exactly the same, somewhere, if you know how to look. But this friend. 'Friend' has never fit. My interest in him is… unique."

"How is it unique?"

"He isn't as warm as the others. Passionate, but he won't show it, which doesn't matter so much, I suppose, if I know it's there. Wit, curiosity, tenacity, grit—he possesses most of the qualities I admire. What makes him unique…"

"Yes?"

"It's what he does. Like the wine business is what you do. He's a modicum of power, nothing compared to my own, a flea's breath. But it isn't nothing where he is concerned. Arrogance, smugness, defiance. Those I do not admire. If I don't ignore them, I eliminate them. I simply present myself and they're gone." Q flicked a splash across the water. "And he's the worst of offenders. He's seen my hand and he continues to resist me. And I've let him. I've enjoyed letting him. Is it narcissism, loving that which I see in myself? I desperately hope so. But I can't be certain enough, I fear I will never know. His death will come and go, and it will remain a mystery forever."

Picard considered the wine again. He drank it, all of it. "Tell me, Q. This so-called friend. Is his name Jean-Luc Picard?"

Q rose to his feet and suddenly his features were perfectly distinguishable, despite the darkness. Perhaps it was the moonlight off the river. Probably not. Picard waited for the confusion of Q's face as he shifted down, down through the tangle of realizations, the maze of his own creation. Instead, Q only scowled at him. It was as if Arthur F. Weathersby had done little more than insult him.

"Jean-Luc Picar—"

"I heard," Q interrupted him. His mouth moved slightly yet his voice was twice as loud.

Then came the emotions. Q's eyes flickered… but he turned, hiding the rest of it. He folded his arms. The fingers of his hand flexed claw-like.

"Consent," he said. His voice resounded over the water.

Picard stood. "Curiosity. You're the one who designed this, it should be no surprise."

Q turned to glare at him.

"So it's ruined, isn't it, the bet?" Picard asked. "You already know me."

"Ruined in your favor."

"I did win. I don't suppose you'll honor that."

"Honor. There's another word, pretty from your lips."

"I am not to blame for this. This has befuddled me from beginning to end. I stumbled through. Yes, I was curious what the great Q had never told a soul but would tell a lowly bartender whose existence he barely deigned to acknowledge. Yes, I pursued that curiosity; you appealed to my curiosity. But you!—you never needed the bet. You had your answer, from your own mouth. My being a captain is integral to your interest."

"You flatter yourself."

"I am but a parrot. Do you think I wanted to learn the day of my own death? If any of it was true. No, I prefer not to wonder. I recant curiosity. Return me to my ship, Q."

"How tortured you must be."

"As I said, I did not want this."

"I didn't want this either, but someone urged me on."

"Yes, heartless of me, making you finish what you'd begun. Making—no, asking—that you deliver on your promise. Well, Q, I've completed what you asked of me, unless you feel you must change the rules again. I have a job to do, minuscule though you think it is. Return me to it."

Q continued to glare.

Picard took one step toward him, his jaw set. His next step he took into his ready-room on the Enterprise. He glanced around, making sure Q was nowhere to be seen. He was alone.

Picard closed his eyes, enjoying the hum of the engines. The room spun, but he held the table for balance. Water. Entirely too much wine. Entirely too much Q. He made for the replicator, one hand to steady himself, one hand pressed into his forehead, relieved it was, at least for now, over.