Disclaimer: I do not own that which you recognize from the shows, I'm just messing around with them.
A/N: Okay, I know I took a long time with the last chapter, but that's because I had severe writer's block, not to mention several other stories. With a little prod from my sister, I got back on track, and since it's summer vacation, and all my friends have gone to their trailer for the weekend, I know I can get some writing done! Yay!
"Ice cream break!" Frances said, tossing away the pad she was working on. Icheb looked up from the work he was correcting, and sighed.
"We have not even been working for an hour. Ice cream is irrelevant. " He stated simply, not moving.
"I know, but I want ice cream, so we're having an ice cream break. Besides, I'm getting a headache from looking at the pad." She added that last as an after thought, figuring it might do more to convince her taskmaster. She got up, then yanked the pad out of Icheb's hand, and pulled him, or at least attempted to pull him, to his feet.
Icheb sighed, getting up, and felt confused at how Frances blushed, though it was hard to see her, bare centimeters away from him. "Are you alright? Should I turn down the temperature in here?" he asked, wondering if it was too warm in the room for her.
"What?" she asked, quickly heading for the door.
"You looked flushed. Is it the heat?" Icheb followed after, knowing from half a year's experience that there was no point arguing with her. She'd only pout, and make working without interruption impossible.
"Um... No, I'm fine." She said, sighing in relief, and annoyance. He is so clueless,she thought, walking beside him. I blush because he is so cute, and I'm right in front of him, and he doesn't get it.She shook her head slightly, waiting with him for the turbo lift.
When it finally came, there was already someone in the lift, but she stared straight ahead, as if not seeing them. Icheb raised an eyebrow at the civvies she was wearing, but didn't ask.
She had shoulder length auburn hair, and blue eyes that seemed tired and strained behind her square glasses. When they reached the ground floor, the girl walked out before them, and into a place Icheb knew was not Starfleet Academy.
Old-style houses sprawled along asphalt streets that went in no particular direction. Twentieth-century cars zoomed by, as the girl walked by them, unconcerned, and Icheb followed, wondering what Q was playing at this time.
The girl turned down a side street, putting the cemetery to her left. Icheb and Frances followed, Icheb wondering where this was going, and Frances hoping it wasn't going where she thought it was.
Entering the door of the house directly beside the cemetery, angry voices assaulted all three.
"... and you just lie there all day long... Kathleen! Where the hell have you been?"
"Out." The girl said, not elaborating anymore than she had to for 'angry dad' as Frances knew she often called him. Their father had Borderline Personality Disorder, and everyone but him knew that 'angry dad' was completely different from 'normal dad'.
"You should have called!" he yelled, his rant at their mother ceasing. "You just blatantly ignore the rules, and I'm sick of it. You're grounded!"
"Fine!" Kathleen answered sarcastically, hoping to, at least, avoid a three-hour rant about how irresponsible she was.
"Don't you take that tone with me-"her father never finished. Kathleen had heard the same arguments, and fights break out for a year. Fighting was all her father did lately, and she – along with the rest of the family – was sick of it.
"What tone? The 'I'm sick of you picking fights' tone, or the 'I'm sick of you blaming me for every little thing since Frances left' tone? Which, because I'm sick of both! All you do is pick fights with us, and we don't even do anything! And then I come home and all you do is bitch at me for 'letting Frances go', as if I could have done something about it! How was I supposed to know she wasn't going to come back?" Kathleen yelled, thoroughly annoyed. "What was I supposed to do? Follow her everywhere? She's not a baby! She's twenty-two, for God's sake! You seem to forget that she's five fucking years older than me!" Kathleen spun on her heel, storming from the room, and back out the door.
The scene froze with the door closing, and Q, with a flash of light, appeared. "Like what you left behind?" he asked Frances, who looked thoroughly horrified.
"He didn't used to be like that..." she whispered, lifting her hands to cover her face.
"Really? He's been doing that a lot lately." Q2 asked, then pulled out a small box that Frances suspected was a Gameboy. He muttered some things under his breath, and smiled. "Ah, family picnic, how cute. You're right, he seems really nice here." He looked up, then seemed to remember something. "Wait a minute! This isn't the point!"
"And what is?" Icheb asked, speaking up for the first time since he and Frances had left his quarters. Q looked flustered, then pulled up the calendar from the kitchen. The month on top boldly declared it to be July, and the year on bottom glared it's denial of Q's time traveling abilities by stating it to be 2004.
"Don't you see?" Q2 asked, annoyed. "This is where Frances comes from! She's a twentieth centurian!"