Once more, rain began to sheet all around Molly and Q (though her mind stubbornly referred to him as Jim) but they remained dry in kind of invisible bubble. Khan growled behind them but with a snap of Jim's fingers, the immediate area froze. Khan stood rigidly in place like a statue poised in a battle stance. Behind him, Jorr was an immobile sentry. She glanced between the two men and then peered around. Above them, a streak of the sun's rays had just split the clouds. The rain hovered as far as she could see like pearls suspended by unseen strings. It was a wild sight.

"H-How are you doing this?" she whispered as she turned back to Jim.

His lips curled in silent amusement. "The same way you transported yourself here. I desired something to happen and made it so. It's a Q thing."

Molly touched her hand to her temple. Jim rocked back and forth on his feet. She remembered that about him; his constant fidgeting as if he couldn't contain himself.

"This . . . this does not make any sense."

Jim cocked his head sideways. "Really? Hmm . . . oh, and my name is not actually Jim, it is Q."

She glowered at him. "Do not read my mind- actually, read it! Go right ahead. Then tell me what the hell is going on!"

Jim's dark brown eyes deepened to black pits. He clasped his hand together then inverted them and stretched out his arms to crack his knuckles. The sound they made was a chorus of excessive pops like the cartoonish snapping of popcorn kernels. He shook out his hands, licked a thumb and tapped it against her forehead. Her nose wrinkled at the slippery wetness between her brows.

"Is that necessary?" she grumbled.

He squinted for a few seconds as if thinking then gave her a double-eyed blink and shook his head. "Nope!"

In the next instant, Molly's body was propelled through a vortex of pulsing lights. Her stomach plunged to her feet. She felt the overwhelming urge to vomit before settling into a kind of queasy suspension.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

Jim floated up next to her with his arms folded behind his head and knees crossed. He swanned his hands out as if gesturing for her to take it all in.

"We are travelling through time!" his voice echoed.

Once again, she felt like she was being put on. His manner was too theatrical. His expression sardonic. She pressed her lips together momentarily with a thought.

"Can't we just blink to wherever it is we are going?"

Her companion's lips sputtered a sigh. He rolled his eyes.

"You are no fun at all, you know?"

An instant later, Molly's stomach lurched violently back into her abdomen. Suddenly, she stood in a dimly lit parlor staring at a couple seated on a sofa lit by the fluctuating blue glow of a television. Yet, it was not just any parlor, nor any random couple. She was back in her old home in London regarding herself cuddling next to the man she'd known as Jim from IT. She held her breath as she tried to reconcile the scene before her eyes. A multitude of memories flooded back to her from her old life. Jim. James Moriarty. A dangerous man . . . but for whom? Her memories were fuzzy and frayed. The more she tried to push into them, the more garbled they became.

"I-I'm home."

"Erm, sort of," Jim murmured over her shoulder, "we are here but not really here, kind of like ghosts. I just wanted to watch the goings on."

"Watch what-?" her words died on her lips.

Molly focused in on the scene just as the other version of herself glanced shyly at the Jim sitting next to her on the sofa. The second Jim looked at his seatmate, his eyes flicked over her face. Warmth infused Molly's cheeks. She knew exactly what was going to happen because she remembered it. The seemingly younger, more handsome Jim squeezed his counterpart's hand. Their fingers intertwined. The temperature in the room ratcheted up a few degrees. From her vantage, Molly noticed something she hadn't when she had personally experienced that particular moment - a twitch of Jim's features. He appeared temporarily conflicted which was followed by a fleeting expression of wonderment. Whatever misgivings he suffered though, he let go of them in a release of breath as he leaned in to kiss Sofa Molly.

She swallowed as she watched the pair's lips come together eagerly. Deep in her gut, she felt a twinge of excitement at the soft mewl her former self made. She remembered their embrace very well; the way his lips pulled hungrily at hers and the insistence of his tongue. It had been sexier than she had expected because she had never had anyone feel so needy for her before. Her breath caught as Sofa Molly clutched onto Jim's shirt. She could almost feel the pliant cotton blend in her hand. The room echoed with the sounds of their moist lips smacking and the huff of air through nostrils. When Sofa Jim groaned, Molly's pulse jumped in her neck. Then, their physicality intensified before her very eyes. Sofa Molly yanked at her partner's white tee while he hauled her onto his lap. Hands cupped her backside over her skirt. A strange curse fell from his lips in a language she had never heard. Why hadn't she noticed it before?

"We shouldn't," he rasped, shaking his dark head, "we shouldn't . . ."

"Too fast?" the randy Molly returned.

"No," he sputtered, "not that. Errrrg, ha-ah, to hell with it!"

Jim's hands rubbed up and down her arse under her skirt. Her fingers tousled his longish, black hair atop his head. Soon the pair was panting from their activities. When Sofa Molly stepped back, pulled her shirt over her head and shimmied out of her skirt and panties, Molly slapped a hand to her mouth to suppress a squeak. Dark eyes, with their pupils blown, stared at her former self intently from the sofa as if she were the most delectable thing he'd ever seen. Molly blinked wide-eyed upon seeing her own naked backside. Never had she ever looked in the mirror and thought she was sexy. She almost laughed at the irony of experiencing excitement from watching herself. To her right, Q, Jim, or whomever he was, sighed.

"Mm, yes, this is my favorite part too."

It took a moment for her to remember she was not alone in her voyeurism. She gasped and spun sideways as her face flamed.

"Oh, my God! D-Don't look at me, I mean, them!" she waved a hand in his face.

He stepped back with his hands up and laughed. "Ha, ha, what?!"

His expression was incredulous. His mouth hung open as he pointed at himself then to where his twin was arched off the sofa and wriggling out of his pants and then back at himself. He wagged his head and gestured emphatically at the couple. Molly grimaced and shook her head as fast as she could.

"That's me!" Jim sputtered and hooted a laugh. "That is me and in about two seconds, that is me inside you. I hate to break it to you, darlin', but I don't forget things, ever."

Back on the couch, someone moaned. Molly covered her mouth with her hands and spun back to see her earlier self straddling a very aroused Jim. Then, in a half-heart beat, she suddenly became that Molly. She found herself over top of Jim's lean, toned body on the sofa. Her every sense was inundated with new information akin to being thrown into a lake. Hands cupped her breasts, the deepest brown eyes bored into hers and there existed a pressure between her legs. A breath expunged harshly from her lungs as she sank down on a rigid cock. Her belly fluttered at the visceral invasion. She squeezed on his shaft as he pushed inside. His penetration began to sooth a pre-existing empty ache that was driving her out of her mind.

"Aaarg, oh, god, this is good," he muttered, his breaths hot on her face, "fu-uck."

Her hands clutched his shoulders. Every thought fled as her backside came to rest on his thighs and his cock was buried inside her sex. Blood pounded through her veins, she struggled to breath properly. Jim. Jim. He was just a bit of fun. She liked him but she knew a long term relationship wasn't in the cards for them. Fun. Just fun. She didn't normally become intimate with someone so quickly but it had been awhile. Or had it? She was so confused. Then, his hips shifted he thrust up inside her, chasing away what dregs of breath were left in her lungs.

"Uuuuuh," she sucked in air and dropped her lips to his.

Hands gripped her hips as she began to rock on him. His lips sought hers eagerly and his tongue stole inside. She wrapped her arms around his neck and devoted herself to their rhythm. Their hips ground together, his cock kept surging, seeking her summit. Over and over their torsos met, her mound greedily rubbed against the flesh of his lower belly. She could feel the tickle of hair on her stomach and chest. Her nipples felt as if they were blazing with the most delicious friction and she was wet, so wet. When she looked down, she could see a sheen of moisture where their bodies came together.

"Molly," he groaned, "um, fuck, I never knew this could be so good."

"Yes," she rasped, "yeeeessss."

Jim's hands flattened on her back. He held her tightly against him and continued his vigorous possession. She could feel a change in him then, a vibration that shook her body. The harmonics of it sent her over the edge. With a final hard stroke into her quivering sex, she shattered. Not too long after spasms made her quake all over, Jim was cumming with a heady moan. She felt him flex and his heat jet into her body. There was another feeling that came next, a tingle somewhere deep and dark. Instead of enjoying the reverberations of her orgasm though, there was a pull at her being.

"Unh- wh-what?" she cried as she was jerked out of the experience.

Molly found herself back across the room still reeling but no longer in an embrace with Jim. She stared wide-eyed at the specter of her other self collapsed on top of him while he rubbed her back. Next to where she wobbled on her feet, she heard a low laugh.

"Sorry, darlin'," came Q-Jim's lilt, "I can't have you getting all sweet on me again or anything."

Molly flushed and glanced at him. Khan popped into her head and she felt a wash of guilt. She heaved in a few breaths and exhaled shakily. As hot as re-experiencing sex with Jim was, she had no feelings for the man he was or the being who grinned at her then, whatever he purported to be. Her heart felt as if it were squashed in her chest for having gone through such an emotional whiplash. She didn't care for this man, she couldn't. Her thoughts were with Khan and she experienced a kind of anxiety like she had cheated on him somehow.

"I wasn't sweet on you then and I'm not now," she spat. "Wh-Why did you show me this?"

A thought struck her.

"Oh, my God!" she gasped as she clutched at her stomach. "That's how it happened. That's why I'm like this."

He dipped his head and nodded slowly. He scratched his scalp through his inky locks and made a face.

"Erm, yeah, yes. Not something I planned but this human form," he swiped down at his body, "it . . . it is hard to resist its compulsion. It is so crude and primitive and has these needs. Anyway, when we did what we did . . . welp, I transferred some of myself to you."

"The red matter," she whispered.

"Yeah, a bit not good. Didn't know that could happen but here you are, a brand new Q and I made you. Sooo, yup, I'm in a spot of trouble with the continuum now. They are pissed for lack of a better word. That is why I have come for you- oop! Heh heh heh, come for you. That's funny."

Molly's head spun. She looked up one last time at the couple on the sofa and felt cold. She turned, towards her tormentor. Her whole form shook.

"I don't want to be like you," she cried as she choked back a sob.

She thought she might pass out then, she experienced shortness of breath. In an instant she returned to Jevek. Khan stood where they had left him, still trapped in a kind of suspended animation. She hurried through the rain, swatting aside hanging droplets like flies, and stopped just short of him. She reached out hesitantly and brushed away a drip clinging to his lip. Her heart continued to wheeze like a damaged piece of fruit losing its pulp. It thudded painfully in her chest. She felt like she was trying to pass an embolism through her veins.

"You think you are better off with him?" Jim laughed at her back.

"Stop it," she whispered, "just stop it."

"Ah, no, can't do that, Q. You're part of the continuum. We protect our own."

"Protect me?" she hissed back at him, staving off tears. "You stole my life from me."

He slouched and trudged forward in an exaggerated display before wagging his hands at the sky. "It was a misadventure! Geez! It's not like I meant to do it."

Molly felt a tear slip down her cheek. She didn't know what to do. For all the power she felt running through her body, she did not gain any freedom in it. She didn't need Jim to explain the Q to her, she could feel its infinite reach like a road that went nowhere because it looped back on itself an immeasurable amount of times. The reality of Q was everything and nothing; limitless but also purposeless. This is why Jim had ventured away from the continuum and why he had taken a human form and come to Earth. There existed beings that attracted him there, like the glow from lightning bugs. He had wanted to experience something other than the emptiness of the Q. He had been especially drawn to someone in her orb who was also connected to Khan in some way. Again, the images shredded apart as she sought to pin them down. It was infuriating to continue suffering such a gap in knowledge.

"I'm not fully Q yet, am I?" she murmured as she turned to Jim.

She couldn't be, not if her memories were limited.

The Irishman's eyes narrowed shrewdly. "No. You are not yet completely transformed. You're more like a lower-case q, heh heh. You need to join the continuum to finalize the process. The jumping you did, that was what alerted me to your presence here."

Molly's nose wrinkled. "So, what? Did I bring myself to the future or something after you infected me?"

He made a face and wagged his head quickly. "I am not touching that one. Some things are better left to self-discovery."

She huffed and hiked a brow but he shrugged and mouthed, "no way."

"Fine . . . the continuum, though? You cannot actually force me to go there."

Jim groaned. "One cannot force a Q to do anything. I would hope you see reason."

Reason.

That was not what came to mind when her gaze was irresistibly drawn back to Khan and his unique beauty. His glassy eyes shone bright blue in this light. He looked both fierce and fragile. Then she heard and felt the crushing weight of Jim's next utterance.

"I don't know why you bother with him, doll. You know he intends to kill you, right?"