As Picard began to speak the word "home," the "h" sound on his breath seemed to be taken up by the air around him in a loud constant wind. He swiveled around and saw he was standing on a metal platform somewhere quite high. Beneath him was a city of some kind. Earth?
He stepped to the edge of the metal platform and realized what it was. He hadn't left Earth at all, not even the city. It was the Eiffel Tower.
His vision blurred, part vertigo and part anger.
There was not another soul in sight on the deck, except Q. Picard knew enough of Paris to know the top floor of the Eiffel Tower should be brimming with tourists.
When Picard turned to accuse him, Q was watching his reaction, as usual. As if he'd been caught, Q slid on a pair of sunglasses and strolled away down the deck. His trench coat flipped and folded in the wind.
Picard went after him. "Once again, everyone else at your whim! I said that we should speak alone, that was all. Certainly not—"
"We are alone," Q said over his shoulder.
"Certainly not that you should displace a crowd of people." Picard hurried around him, blocking his path. "What are you doing? Why are you acting like this?"
Q looked at him over the top of his sunglasses, his expression bemused. "I might ask the same of you, mon capitaine."
Pushing his sunglasses back, Q stepped towards the view. "You've never been up here before, have you? Those interminable lines. It's quite a powerful feeling, looking over Paris in miniature. Maybe I wanted to be the one to show you."
"This isn't about me; this is about you. If it were about me, you would have asked."
"I did ask."
"All of it, Q."
A gust ruffled Q's dark hair. Picard felt the chill of it, still damp from the weather of the last place Q had thrown him.
Q raised his hand and snapped: Picard was enveloped by a trench coat identical to Q's own.
It made Picard angrier. Dressed and coddled like a child. Moved around like a game piece. Overruled. These were among the very actions that had made him despise Q on the Enterprise. Had Q forgotten that?
Picard knew he should ask where the tourists had gone, if they were safe. He also knew Q would be put off by the insinuation behind the question and it would sidetrack the conversation. It was as if Q did that on purpose, keeping Picard distracted and content to compromise so that he could never make his full point.
Why should he wait? No, the people could wait. Now was his chance. But if he was to act so uncharacteristically, so selfishly, so Q-like, he knew to be sure of everything.
"Before I speak further, I need your word."
Q raised an eyebrow. "I'm listening."
"I need you to promise you'll stay here, with me, until I've had my say."
"Need, Jean-Luc? Or want?"
"Require."
Q hummed a chuckle. "Let's say for the sake of your argument you are at liberty to detain me, what does that make me, your servant? One of your crew? How about 'one hour of your time, Q,' are we back there again?"
Picard let his anger get the better of him. "I don't know if I can survive another hour with you. The last one didn't go very well for me."
Q had been avoiding him thus far, but hearing this, he turned smoothly to face him. Whatever emotion propelled him was hidden behind his sunglasses: twin mirrors that showed Picard a warped view of his head and Paris on the horizon. Q rolled his jaw, as if pushing aside the emotion, and replied evenly, "Your request that I stay is noted."
Picard nodded. It would have to suffice. He steadied himself against the cold railing. "I'd like to recall something for both of our sakes. This sudden behavior of yours is not dissimilar to how you behaved on the Enterprise, and you know what I thought of you then."
Q turned away, considering the tower. "All this metal blocking everything, just to keep a few humans from jumping? Hardly seems worth it."
He snapped. The entire deck changed.
The upper bell tower was gone now, as were all of its supports. The floor under their feet was tiled in marble and furnished with various tables and couches. Sleek railings lined the perimeter, low and very unsafe, framing the city perfectly on all sides. Even the wind had stopped gusting.
Q reclined on a red chaise lounge, an arm flung over his forehead.
Picard stood over him, trying to keep to the point. "Do you expect me to treat you any differently, Q? Than I did on the Enterprise."
"Why are we talking about the Enterprise? Why are you always dragging us back there? Sit. Relax. How often will you be up here like this? No one's been up here like this."
"I have a larger concern at the moment."
Q hooked his sunglasses on his shirt and folded his arms. "You know, if I could impart upon you one single emotion it would be satisfaction. You've done very well for yourself. You should enjoy it. You've more power at your disposal than anyone of your species — of most species."
"Because of you."
"Yes. Why not?"
"Someone else may rightly tell me to relax and count my blessings, but you cannot hold yourself against me. That isn't exactly fair."
Squinting, Q motioned towards the sun. "Could you take one big step to your left?"
Picard sat on the edge of an armchair, leaning forwards. "I need to trust you."
"You can trust me."
"When I make plans, I need you to respect them."
Q sighed at the sky.
"Why is that so difficult?" Picard asked.
Q sat up, shaking his head with an exhausted smirk. "Sometimes I think if it weren't for my power you wouldn't have anything to do with me." He slid on his sunglasses and left for the railing.
At last, Picard thought, they were getting somewhere. This had the ring of truth that nothing before it had. Even Q's manner when he had said it changed: he had abandoned the playful tone, become serious again.
Picard was glad. He was tired of skirmishing. It was easier if they were both honest.
He followed Q to the railing.
"What would you have me say to that, Q? Of course I value your power. Should I not? Would you have as high a regard for yourself if not for that?"
Q scanned the city before answering. "No."
"Q, look at me."
Q turned, sitting against the railing.
"Please take those off."
Q took the sunglasses off, tossing them into a nearby chair. There was a sadness in his eyes. There was a spark there too, as there usually was with him; always ready for a fight. But the sadness, the sorrow, was overpowering it.
"I consider you my friend," Picard said. "Whatever that's worth to you."
Q snorted, a sour smile twisting his lips. He looked down at the cage he was forming with his fingers. "Not much. You're about to die, Jean-Luc."
Another one, Picard thought. A ring of truth, a second piece into the puzzle. But even as Picard realized the importance of the confession, it still struck him as funny. He knew Q was speaking in general, but a part of him wondered if Q knew something he did not.
"About to die… now?" he asked, grinning.
Q's brows furrowed. "Don't be glib." He vanished.
Picard turned. He could see Q on the opposite side of the platform. It was interesting that in that brief moment Picard hadn't been at all concerned that Q had left him.
He circled the outside of the platform. The view seemed to taunt him as he passed, and he wished he could enjoy it under easier circumstances. Since he was a boy, he'd wanted to summit this tower.
Q was lying on a coach, on his stomach. "I know you have to laugh about it, but I'd rather not."
Picard leaned against the rail, grasping it on either side. The unguarded height gave him a pulse of adrenaline, but he didn't mind. Alertness felt useful for this moment. He watched Q, either waiting for him to say more or to give some signal he wanted a response. He felt ready for anything now.
Q was scratching at the tile with his thumbnail. His lips were pursed moodily. "You should enjoy my power. I didn't mean it like that. You should enjoy everything you can while there's still time. After you wasted so much of it."
His voice was bitter, yet Picard did not hear any criticism in the subtext. He heard loneliness. It was the very emotion Q was exuding when, several months ago in Picard's kitchen, he'd spoken of joining the Continuum — and after that, how he looked at Picard with pain. Picard had expected to encounter this again, eventually.
He waited for Q to say more.
"It goes without saying, I consider you my friend."
Picard had heard that from Q before, but for the first time he was ready for it. He smiled. He was glad Q wasn't watching him so he could keep smiling for as long as he wanted. Silence was working for him, so he didn't reply, but he would have if Q had shown a sign of needing it.
"It's so easy for you. I offer you the universe, and you take whatever you want. Sometimes you want something, sometimes you don't, but I'm always there accommodating you. And you? One day, you're gone. That's it. And I'm left to miss you. I will miss you, you know. On and on and on, I'll miss you." Q's lips stretched tight. "And you'll never feel any of that."
Picard's smile had fallen. Without thinking about it, he found himself moving forward, crouching down to Q's level, so that the entity's burning eyes lifted to his.
"I'm truly sorry," Picard said.
Q folded his arms under his chin, facing away. "Why should you be sorry? Nothing changes."
"Well. To some extent I'm the cause of it. Aren't I?"
Q didn't speak. Didn't move.
Picard felt he understood now. Q's regression, the avoidance, the forcefulness, all of it made sense in the context of this. Not excusable, but sense.
If Picard let himself, he could have marveled at it; that someone like Q would profess this of him. Could he believe it? Was it even possible? Yet this line of contemplation, as always, seemed frivolous to him. It was easier to think of it as beyond his comprehension, as Q often said, and then to grant Q some space to process it on his own.
He lost track of time enjoying the view. Sunlight flashed on the Seine. A flock of pigeons swelled and darted beneath him. And no crowd either; he could move wherever he wanted, stare as long as he liked. He allowed himself some slight giddiness knowing how different everyone else's experience with this view was.
Eventually Q slid beside him at the rail. His voice was easy again. "I'll return you to your friend when you're ready. I don't want to presume."
Picard recognized the apology. It was a skilled one. It did not resemble the kind of apology someone would normally make, but it precisely demonstrated an understanding of the problem and a resolve to change. He was pleased.
"Good," he replied. "I'd hate to be stranded up here, or left to die in the snow." There, two could play at this game.
"Ah," Q said, understanding him. "Would never happen. Not on my watch."
That part was not as strong of an apology, but Picard supposed he didn't really need one for it now.
He smiled at the city. "This is beautiful, Q."
Q nodded slightly, shrugged slightly, like of course it was. He leaned over the railing, his hair stirring in the open air.
Eventually they came to the planet Picard had always thought of as Delta Pine. Q told him the name the occupants had used, but it confounded Picard's universal translator. Q laughed and refused to translate it further, so Picard left it at that: Delta Pine.
The surface of the planet was as Picard remembered it. Humid and frigid, pitch black until Q snapped an artificial light into the sky that dimmed the twinkling stars behind it. The tree was still there, exactly as in his memory, solitary in an infinite field of barren rocks.
"In a few weeks the sun will expand into all of this," Q said, adding wryly, "Better hurry."
Picard worked with an assortment of equipment Q provided, examining both the tree and the area around it. Q watched him from the comfort of a hammock swing tied to the lowest branch.
As usual, Q seemed to have no inhibitions about openly staring: a calm, contented expression. Picard felt an itch to break the silence.
"I've been meaning to ask you something, Q. When we were talking that night you discovered me traveling here… When did you decide you would give me a second chance? At what point?"
"Why is that bothering you?"
"I'm curious."
"I realized it before your bed, of course; I have some self-respect. If you must know, it didn't happen all at once. The largest shift was after I sent you to the Continuum. I wasn't proud of that. After that, it was like running downhill. I couldn't stop it."
"So when you left me in the drawing room, when I thought you had left for good… you were bluffing."
"Is that why you're asking? There's no neat answer, Jean-Luc, it's more complicated than that."
"The wine, you took it with you, yet you had gifted it to me originally. Will I ever have the chance to try it, or was it simply a prop?"
In response, a side table appeared with an open bottle and a glass. Picard closed his tricorder. After a moment of savoring the last of his supposedly innocent state, he poured a glass and sipped.
It was smooth. It seemed to glide through his mouth and yet the flavor penetrated perfectly. As for the flavor itself, it was as compelling as the best wines Picard had tasted: fruity and smoky, jammy in the throat. He sipped again, enjoying it as much as the first taste. He could see why Q had praised it. But at the same time, it was still wine, and he was still himself afterwards.
He frowned at the glass. "Is it possible you overrated this?"
"Are you telling me you aren't impressed, mon capitaine? Incredible." Q said the nickname easily, like he used to.
Picard started to argue with him, but he saw Q's smirk and realized it was sarcasm.
He returned to his work.
Perhaps he was being stubborn about how normal the wine was. Perhaps it would ruin his taste, in time. He realized, worryingly, it was the sort of thing that could only be observed in retrospect. It was beyond his control now.