Picard half-expected Q to appear the next morning, urging him towards an adventure with the same gusto that he normally exhibited. When a day passed and Q did not appear, he was not too surprised. Q had been so resolute against him for so long. It was like expecting an old Earth steamship to change course as easily as one of its tugboats.
So Picard decided to wait for him.
Two days passed, then three. He tried to put it out of mind — to enjoy being on Earth again, being home again, seeing old friends and helping out around the vineyard. On the seventh day, the suspense became acute. Picard no longer merely wished to talk to Q; he needed to. He was growing paranoid that he had only imagined the reconciliation, that Q never intended to resume a relationship, and he doubted that was the effect even Q had intended.
He was washing a pot in his kitchen when he decided to get it over with. He raised his chin and spoke plainly: "Q."
This had never worked for him since the Enterprise — and only rarely even then. Immediately he heard Q's airy reply behind him.
"Mon capitaine."
He smiled instinctively. Minding Q's joke about sugary sweetness, he flexed the smile from his face and turned. "This year I persuaded the last of my old crew to stop calling me captain, and here you are. It seems I have one final challenge."
Q was standing near the refrigerator, mirroring Picard's clothes. His hands were clutched behind his back, his chin high. "Well, you're still a captain of a sort. I have a feeling you're about to issue me some orders. So that's what this is now, I'm just supposed to take you wherever you want to go? A cabbie, a concierge and a god, all in one."
Picard let a thoughtful grunt. He had wondered if this was the problem: Q's pride. Of course it wouldn't just go away.
He decided to use humor. "Correct, I'm going to issue orders. Sit down, I've made you dinner."
There was an obstinate edge in Q's expression at first, but it tempered into amusement. "I don't really do eating."
"Have you had coq au vin? Don't answer that — you've never had my coq au vin. It's a new experience. Don't you like those? Please, Q. Sit."
Q sat at the raised counter, resting his chin on his folded arms. Picard thought he spotted some caution in Q's expression, although to anyone else he would seem like a sullen child.
"Strange to see you here." Picard pulled a pot out of the oven. "A part of me thinks this isn't real, that you're going to change your mind. Or that you didn't change your mind to begin with, and I'm going to find that out instead."
As he set the pot down, he watched Q in his peripheral vision. He caught the entity's slow smile.
"How uncomfortable," Q agreed. "Surely I'm not meant to do anything to allay it? No, I think you'll have to get used to that feeling, the feeling of taking a risk."
It was difficult by design, then. Just like his retirement party. That told Picard two things; first, that Q must still have some objection to him, one even he might not be aware of; and two, that it still wasn't the right time for questions. He supposed he could wait a little while longer.
"You seem to relish being a mystery," he said.
Q reached out and picked at a blemish in the wood. "Oh, I don't think it's as fun as that."
Draining the water from a boiling sauce pan, Picard's vision clouded with steam. "Continuing to work under the assumption that you are interested in my life, I'll tell you about the week I've had. Shall I?"
And that's what he did. While he finished mashing and seasoning the potatoes, he summarized for Q all the highs and lows of the week. He even included the parts where he had wondered where Q was, hoping Q might address the mystery of his absence without Picard needing to ask about it — but Q said nothing. He kept his head cradled in his arms, his half-lidded eyes staring into the middle distance.
Picard found himself missing the old eager Q. He knew he would treat that Q much more kindly today. He also knew how the past could take on a false, brilliant shine, which if allowed might outshine even the present. Better to appreciate the present for what it was. He might rediscover the eager Q yet.
Q seemed to be thinking along similar lines. "If I had suggested anything as domestic as this scene before, you would have mocked me off your ship."
"Hm. Perhaps so." Picard began to plate both of their dinners.
"Comfortable living suits you, Jean-Luc. You have a glow."
"I appreciate the comforts of home more these days. Retirement has treated me well, once I got used to it. Perhaps the ship — your ship — aided in the transition." Picard slid Q's plate forward and Q straightened up to eat. Before Picard could hand him a fork and knife, Q had already created a pair and was prodding at the chicken dubiously.
"Or perhaps it was because I was born here," Picard continued. "There is something healing about returning to the place you once called home."
"I wholeheartedly agree. That's right, you've visited the Continuum now, haven't you?"
Picard let a heady sigh. "I wouldn't call it a visit." He felt annoyance rising in his chest, but he suppressed it. Later, he told himself.
Earlier, he had been intentionally guiding Q into revealing information, and it had not worked. Of course, the time he had not been trying, then it would be successful.
Q shot him a weary look, and at first Picard expected to hear some quip about the smell or arrangement of the dinner. Q dropped his fork and folded his arms over his chest. He launched into an explanation of the Continuum.
Listening to it, Picard felt a kind of wonder that reminded him of the feeling of standing on a beach looking at the ocean, or on the bridge of the Enterprise watching a cosmic event. He ate his dinner without really tasting it.
Q told him about the form of the Continuum: an actual continuum, a line of individuals with only small differences between the adjacent and greater differences further apart. He told him how long ago he had once ruled the Q, the most powerful being in existence. He told him about his present circumstance, how he was on the edge of the continuum. There were two edges, but he was on the side closest to material reality, which was why he was always the spokesperson, and always pushing the envelope of acceptable Q-like behavior.
At last Q stood, his food untouched, and started slowly circling the kitchen. "An outsider has its value, so the Continuum doesn't mind me too much. Maybe I'm the canary in the coal mine, or maybe I'm like the geese flying in formation kilometers above us, one goose out in front taking the brunt of the wind. Still, being the black sheep can become exhausting. I am exhausted. I plan to be back with them as soon as it's possible for me."
His eyes fell on Picard, and he smiled. "It isn't 'soon' for you; the timescale I mean is longer than your species has been alive. But for me, it's soon."
"And you'll be different then?"
"Yes," Q said quietly. His mouth opened like he wanted to say more. Pain flickered in his eyes, then was gone. Again, Picard wished their conservation were not so fragile he could have asked what it was.
Q noticed Picard's empty plate. Remembering his own plate, he walked over and stabbed a bite of chicken, chewing it deliberately, swallowing.
"Fine," he said with a slight shrug, dropping the fork.
Picard laughed. There was a moment when his laughter died, but thinking about it, he began to laugh again. He felt equal parts touched and offended.
Q watched this like he couldn't decide if it bothered him.
After that day, Q began to show up on his own. The first time he appeared when Picard was having breakfast. After a hearty hello, he snapped, turning Picard's toast and eggs into enough scones and pastries for ten men, then he whisked him away to the Prospero where they watched the merging of two black holes.
The second time, Q showed him an anomalous solar system in the Gamma quadrant. For that, they were gone for several days.
Q offered to slow the passage of time for this, to condense Picard's absence into a neat twenty-four hours for convenience's sake. Picard refused.
Q had been absolutely right with the wine analogy he had used. Picard knew he could quickly become spoiled to his own humanity in this relationship — just as drinking a rare wine might ruin one's tolerance for the banal. He wanted to avoid losing himself inside the grandeur of the Q, and so he insisted Q take things slowly not only in how frequently they interacted but also in the type of interaction. No temporal shifts, no state changes, no reveals that might eclipse Federation knowledge. When he told Q this, he saw the same pain in Q's eyes he had seen in his kitchen. Q nodded in acquiescence and turned away.
This was not to say Picard did not enjoy his time with Q. He enjoyed it immensely. That was why caution was imperative.
Sometimes a few days passed between Q's visits. Sometimes it went as long as a month. Always Q initiated. Picard had not yet felt confident enough to do so. Even if he had known of some sight or activity which might amuse Q, he was too aware he was still in some kind of trial period. Q had not eased up around him. He was either wry or polite; either giving voice to some interior pain or else pretending it did not exist.
Whenever he said farewell — for example, "Bonsoir, mon capitaine" on a recent evening — there was an edge to the nickname that had not been there before. An emphasis on "capitaine." Once Picard would have preferred it that way, but now it only rang as an insult.
How could Picard complain about any of this? Q was always so calm, so powerful, so impenetrable. "Tell me about what's bothering you, Q," he may say, yet all his instincts told him Q would not respond to such a question. If Picard wanted to dictate the pace of their exploration, then Q was certainly allowed his own reservations, whatever they were.
Sometimes Q seemed to relax, however. Whenever Picard told him a story about some goings-on in his life, those sharp eyes would soften. Or when Picard was observing or learning, he would look up and see a contented smile on the entity's face.
He began to realize: perhaps in wanting the eager Q, what he really wanted was not that level of energy but the authenticity that had created it.
He did not have long to wait before Q's manner became a clear issue. He had no warning of it save a casual question from Q. "What do you think of a game, Jean-Luc? Every once in a blue moon? Well, no need for details. We'll talk next time."
The talk never happened.
Picard was on the train to Paris to meet a friend for lunch, an appointment he had scheduled the previous week. He was turning a page in his book when everything changed. He was standing in the middle of a snowy, desolate landscape. The book was gone. Everything was gone, except his person and his clothes.
The wind slammed into him, deathly cold. There was a cluster of gray trees as possible shelter. Beyond that, the blizzard obscured his vision.
He saw a pair of footprints leading away from him over the hilltop, a plume of smoke beyond it merging into the angry sky. The snowfall was quickly erasing the footprints. Instinctively, he began to follow them, and then pulled himself to a halt.
"Q," he said. Then he shouted it, over the storm. "Q!"
There was no answer. No sign anything had changed or anyone had heard.
A doubt sprang into his mind: was this Q? If it was some other cause, refusing the warmth of a fire might actually hurt him.
But of course it was Q, or Q would have shown up when called. He had been doing that quite reliably lately. It shouldn't matter where in the universe Picard found himself.
"I know you can hear me. This isn't the time for a game. I have plans." He was struck by how odd that string of words sounded in his surroundings.
Q's voice carried easily over the din — only his voice. Not strained in the slightest. "Lunch with a human over me?"
Picard felt relieved to hear it. "Yes. Exactly that." A gust blew snowfall into his mouth. "This can wait."
"Oh I'm just supposed to wait, am I? Why can't she wait?"
"Yes, you're supposed to wait."
"I don't seem to be waiting."
Picard was astonished. Each time he had answered, he expected Q to give in, growing more and more surprised when he didn't. He didn't know what was wrong, but he knew he couldn't encourage it.
In response, he turned round and sat down in the snow. There was a long silence, the wind whistling, snow stinging his cheek and neck, and then Q's low reply:
"Then die there."
Picard chuckled. The chuckle turned into a shiver. His extremities were already prickling. Soon they would be numb. He told himself he had endured worse, although there was nothing quite so awful as the pain you were enduring now. He didn't know how bad this was going to get, but the worse — Picard stopped the thought, realizing it was the sort of persuasive thing he should say aloud.
"I don't know how long you intend to stretch this out," he muttered through chattering teeth, "but the worse it gets for me, it will be just as bad for you."
He concentrated on rubbing his hands together, although it wasn't helping.
A warm coat fell over his shoulders. He tugged it around himself, groaning with relief.
Q was standing a little ways down the hill, eye-level with him, wearing a thick coat of his own. His expression was firm, his eyes dark with power. His words, though muttered, were still perfectly audible.
"I don't know why I bother trying to please you."
"So don't," Picard spat.
Q's smile was slim, taut. He didn't move, but everything changed again.
Picard found himself in the middle of a bustling cafe, still numb with frost, still wearing the coat. His friend waved at him from a distant table, the Parisian skyline framed in the window behind her.
Picard held up his finger, mouthing "one moment," and made for the restroom. It was a large tiled room, thankfully empty. He removed the coat, dumping it into a corner, and washed his face with warm water. He let the water run over his fingers, sighing contentedly. The more recovered he felt, the more his anger returned.
He checked again to make sure he was alone. "This isn't done," he said to no one. "Q! You can't just strong-arm me into whatever—"
Someone walked in. It was not Q. A short round man with a perplexed expression. Picard turned away and washed his hands again, knowing full well Q was probably laughing.
He left the restroom, trying to get into the mindset of lunch. It would be a waste to return home now; easier to get it over with, although it was hardly fair to his friend. She would almost certainly notice he was not feeling himself, and it wasn't as if he could vent about Q to her. He would have to pretend nothing had happened.
He was aware of someone watching him from a table bordering the walkway, and he double-took Q. His rosy hands were interlaced on the table, his expression easy and entertained, as though he was perfectly willing to watch Picard walk past.
Picard doubled back and slid into the chair across from him. "What are you doing?"
"You seemed upset," Q said, bobbing his head to the side.
"You — you're still playing your damned game!" He hadn't shouted it, but he had raised his voice. Those at the tables around him turned. He didn't care.
"We're going to talk, now," Picard said. "Alone." Lunch would be impossible; at least he could salvage this.
Q set two elbows on the table, getting comfortable. "Here?"
"No, elsewhere." In a sharp tone he added, "If you don't mind."
"Any preference?"
"No!"
Q raised his eyebrows in surprise. Picard realized his error and started to correct course, to say the word, "Home," but Q had already snapped.