A/N: Apologies for the long wait. I did put a message on my profile explaining – I am an English teacher and I have new responsibilities. I have also been doing some filming for a television programme and had personal responsibilities and deadlines for my professional writing. This has all left me with very little free time. So, you have my profuse apologies but my updates will be less frequent now. I shall try to update once a fortnight.
A/N2: You should have gotten this days ago but went all screwy and wouldn't let me upload the document.
Chapter 10.
"He must have an agenda."
Beverley turned her gaze towards the first officer and noted the strained expression. She raised an eyebrow in question to Deanna, who just grimaced and shrugged.
"Well, whatever his agenda is, the Captain is now completely healed. There is no need to deliver the baby and his system is completely free of toxins. I didn't even have grounds to keep him in sickbay. I've booked him off duty for another two days to make sure that he and Theich both have a chance to deal with the trauma of the situation but he's fit for duty if needs be."
Will took his seat, carefully leaving the Captain's usual place empty and frowned.
"I'll inform the crew that all is well. We still need to consider Q a threat though. I can't believe that he didn't have a reason for doing this…"
"Theich said that he wanted to help."
"Deanna, Theich doesn't know Q. He doesn't know what he's capable of and how much trouble he will cause for his own amusement."
"If I may interject here Sir?"
"Yes Data?"
"Q does often cause us trouble, however, he usually states a purpose in doing so. He does not pursue a course without reason…"
"Exactly!"
"But Sir, he has stated no lesson to be learnt. Nor has he declared that there is something that we do not understand. He informed us of the bear trap and then left us to find it. Usually he is more meddlesome, but there is always a stated purpose. He also rarely lies outright. If he stated that he wished to help, then after examining his previous behaviour in encounters with our crew, I would be inclined to believe him. It is, of course, possible that he is lying and does indeed have an ulterior motive, but I believe it would be out of character."
"Out of character for Q to lie?"
"Yes Sir."
Will ran a hand through his hair and stared at his crew. Data seemed to be the only one convinced that Q was on the level, although Deanna was obviously considering the possibility. Q being helpful, it just couldn't pan out in any pleasant way, could it? There was the remote possibility that Q's experiences as a human being had taught him something about them that would lead to helpful behaviour but his habitual wariness of the immortal just couldn't keep the distrust and indignance at bay, no matter how much he had helped the Captain. With anyone other than Q he would have considered his own behaviour ungrateful, but it was Q.
Will waved a weary hand to dismiss the meeting. There was nothing that they could investigate, they would just have to wait and see what Q did next.
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Jean-luc threw the book he was reading down and looked over his shoulder at his mate. He was tending to one of the veinlings that had finally been delivered, most were being planted in the new hydroponics bay but Theich was determined that all of those delivered would survive their journey.
"Do you have to do that now Theich?"
Theich briefly looked up, keeping the syringe sticking out of a tubulous root steady as his eyes failed to connect with Jean-luc's.
"Yes, it'll die if I don't resolve the hydration problem now. They should have kept them at a lower temperature, it was just too damn hot on that transport vessel."
His tone was distracted and Jean-luc frowned, too concerned to ignore the failed eye contact.
"For God's sake, I've just come out of sickbay after nearly losing our child and you're sitting there like we've spent too much time together and need to get on with some neglected work."
Theich put the syringe down on the table but didn't look up. If Jean-luc could have seen his eyes, he would have seen the pain evident in his unfocused gaze. As it was he sighed and left the living area for their bedroom. The relationship was too important for him to push as far as he would like to. He would have liked to storm and rage and demand some answers. He would have liked to pick Theich up and shake him.
He was lying in bed unable to sleep when Theich eventually came through to the bedroom.
"Jean-luc?"
There was no answer but Theich could tell from his breathing that he was still awake. He sat on the edge of the bed, inches from his mate.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what to say. Part of me wants to just carry on as normal, hoping that that makes everything okay and doesn't chance fate to test us further but mostly I just feel guilty. I feel guilty for the way I made you feel, for not being able to be there to hold your hand and share your tears, for not being able to stop what happened or prevent it. I know that there was nothing to be done, that I can't cloister you away like a precious and delicate flower, that you need to do your job to be yourself and to be happy with your life BUT I felt utterly helpless and all I could do was chant in a religious ritual that meant nothing to you. I feel useless. I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?"
Jean-luc remained immobile for a moment and then turned to face his mate. His pain was written clearly on his face. Theich sucked in his breath audibly. He had envisioned many things with Jean-luc, prayed for possibilities but one never includes the true moments of pain when one imagines what might lie ahead. He had never wanted to cause such pain and the fact that it was so evident on Jean-luc's face now was a testament to how far their relationship had come.
"Jean-luc, I love you so much. I don't know what to say. The last couple of days have been an emotional overload and I know that I should have been more supportive. All I can say is that I am sorry and that it won't happen again."
"I need to know that you are with me. I cannot go through times like these alone. I understand what you were doing and why you were doing it, I know that it was important to you but I need more and I cannot deal with this emotional distance right now. Whatever your feelings and problems are, I need to share them so that I at least know where you are. Without that, I will be thinking the worst. Do you understand that?"
Theich curled up on the bed around his mate, resting his hands against the bulk of his belly.
"Of course I understand, that's why I am apologising. Jean-luc, you mean the world to me. I love you more than my own life."
"Marry me then."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Marry me. I know it isn't the most romantic scenario but…"
"On my world a commitment is all that is necessary, the bond acts in the manner of your matrimonial laws but I understand how that might be important to you…"
"I want it to be important to you too."
"It is, even if only through my connection with you."
"Then?"
"In my mind we are already married but I would be honoured to undergo your cultural ritual too."
"Could you make that a little colder and more clinical?"
"I didn't mean it like that."
"I know, but still…"
"Right, well, short of quoting Shakespeare for you, a pledge of my devotion will have to do. You are the light of life, fire of my loins…"
"That's not Shakespeare, that's Vladimir Nabokov; I am hardly an underage schoolgirl and you are definitely no Humbert Humbert."
"What? Oh for F…. I'm trying to be romantic for you and all you can do is criticise my quoting skills. I did say 'short of quoting Shakespeare'.."
"Well, you're usually the gushing one amongst us. I ask you to marry me, you mention Shakespeare and then give me love quotes from a pedophile. I'm over sixty and you're nearly eighty …"
"Do you ever think that maybe you are a little too analytical? That maybe you need to get the nose OUT of the books?"
"No."
"No, I didn't think so. Well 'I love you' and 'yes' is just going to have to do then, now that you've clinicised the mood so much."
"I've clinicised the mood? You're the one who was sitting with a bloody syringe whilst ignoring me."
"I was not ignoring you. I was having an existential crisis."
"Don't be so fucking pretentious."
"Can you write that one down for me? I want that chronicled for future abuse."
"You bast…"
Theich claimed Jean-luc's mouth with his own and initiated the link between them, thereby eliminating all possible misunderstandings. As he trailed his way down the opening in Jean-luc's nightshirt he thought he heard a mumbled "..ard."
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Beverley stopped her revision of the bioscans. So far she had been unable to ascertain what Q had done. She had hoped that she would discover a scientific process that had reversed the effects of the Captain's injuries but as yet, it all seemed like magic. No matter how much Q claimed to be a God, the scientist in Beverley knew that it was merely a higher understanding of science and nature and the evolutionary adaption necessary to manipulate matter in accordance with that understanding. She had hoped that something as simple as a Q-style medical procedure would open up the process for comprehension, or at the very least give some data that would begin the process of working out how he worked.
The dampening of her frustration through five hours of analysis had not paid off in the way that she had hoped. There was something familiar about the reconstructed matter at the cellular level though. She racked her brain for any hint of where she might recognise this cellular structure from but it seemed to elude her.
Then she left the computer screen and looked at actual cell samples through the magnifier. Something in the act of creating a slide and looking through the scope triggered something in her memory. She called up old files from her days at medical school, running through all of her research projects to see if the trigger linked to a metaphorical bullet. She found it under her rejected final year dissertation proposals. Intergalactic cells - How the occurrence of the same form of cellular structure in all humanoid life forms could support the Gatherer theory.