Chapter 12: Hide and Q Part 2
On the bridge of the Enterprise in the Captain's Ready Room, Q had made himself at home as Picard and Buffy entered, his back is to them.
"Q, listen to me. You seem to have some need of humans..." Picard said.
"Or concern regarding them." Q said.
"Whichever it is, why try to solve it through this confrontation with us? Why not a simple direct explanation, a statement of what you seek? Why these games?" Picard asked.
Q turned and they saw he is holding Picard's complete works of William Shakespeare. He indicated the book. "I'm surprised you have to ask when your human Shakespeare has already explained it so well."
"Indeed, he did, Q. But careful you don't depend too much on any single viewpoint he..." Picard said.
"Why these games I require of you? A pity you're not familiar with the contents of your own library. Hear this, Picard, Buffy, and reflect." Q said as he reads from the book. "All the galaxy's a stage, and..."
"All the galaxy?" Buffy asked. "Isn't it all the world's a stage..."
Picard nodded, "It is all the world's a stage…"
"Oh, you both know that one? Then how about… Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." "Q" says.
Buffy looked to Picard having not heard that one.
"And so, you say, how we respond to a game tells you more about us than our real life, a tale told by an idiot. Interesting, Q." Picard said.
"Shall I quote from Hamlet?" "Q" asked.
Picard shook his head, "No. I know Hamlet. And what he said with irony I prefer to say with conviction. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty. In form, in moving, how express and admirable. In action, how like an angel. In apprehension, how like a god..."
"You don't really see your species like that?!" Q asked, angrily as he slammed the book shut.
"I see us one day becoming that, Q. Is that what concerns you?" Picard wondered.
Q came angrily to his feet, slamming the volume down and disappeared in a flash of light.
"He almost seems like a child despite his power. Reminds me of Dawn a little when she was younger," Buffy said as Picard laughed. "I wish he would give us a straight answer on Dawn though."
"On all of them," Picard said as Buffy nodded. "That said from what we've learned so far he is interested in both Commander Riker as well as your sister. The question is for what purpose."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Dawn found herself standing in a bedroom. She saw that herself sat on the bed. "Dawn," she said but got no response from the other Dawn. Like before she was just watching but couldn't interact.
"Come in, Piper," the other Dawn said as a knock came at the door.
Piper opened the door and stepped into the room. "How did …"
The other Dawn smiled. "Buffy, said you might be coming by."
Piper nodded as she moved over to a chair and sat down.
Dawn watched her doppelganger squint at the door and it closed of its own accord.
"You're getting pretty good at that," Piper said.
"I've been practicing," the other Dawn said. "I don't want a repeat of earlier with the furies."
"That's understandable," Piper said. "Mom suggested I should ask you how Prue thought I could live without her."
The other Dawn nodded. "I know. There is something we have yet to tell any of you. Buffy died a few months ago. It wasn't one of the first uses of personal gain spells Willow had done. But it was one of the biggest. Willow brought Buffy back. During the time she was gone, I felt very much like you, Piper. Lost, alone. I didn't understand how Buffy could leave me. I understood why she did it though. So that I could live. But I don't understand how, and I may never understand till I am faced with that choice. Buffy doesn't hear it enough from me, shoot I've been a brat when it comes to hers and my relationship. But I do love my big sister. So much so that I wasn't sure if I could keep to my promise. When she saved my life, by sacrificing her own. She gave me this speech; it was the only thing that kept me going."
"What did she say?" Piper wondered.
The other Dawn smiled as she began to recite something she had heard. "Dawn, listen to me. Listen. I love you. I'll always love you. But this is the work I have to do. Tell Giles I ... I figured it out. And I'm okay. Give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now—you have to take care of each other. You have to be strong, Dawn. The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For me."
Tears came to Dawn's eyes as she watched as the bedroom, her doppelganger and Piper faded away as the white expanse return. She saw Q walking toward her. "Another universe?" she asked.
"Yes," Q said. "There are a multitude of them. This is one where Buffy became the mother of a trio of very powerful witches. There are a few universes with their inclusion, some where she became their cousin or sister. One where Faith, is a daughter of one of them."
"Why show me all this?" Dawn asked.
"The multiverse is vast," Q said. "How would you like to visit one. See how things could be different. Or take your sister, home? I've given you that power." Dawn looked at him confused for a moment. "Do you understand? I've given you the power of the Q."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Picard and Buffy walk out of the Ready Room. They notice that everything had changed. That the grid was now gone and they appeared to be moving at warp. "Ensign, take the conn."
Buffy moved to the helm console and sat down as Tasha got up and moved to her station.
"Engineering - this is the bridge," Picard said as he moved to his chair and touched the companel.
"Engineering here, sir."
"Are all systems back on line?" Picard asked.
"Back on line, sir? They were never off."
Buffy studied the console; this was the first time she had sat at it alone with no one looking over her shoulder. If she was reading this right, it was saying they had never stopped. "Captain, if I'm reading this right …"
Picard moved to Buffy and looked over her shoulder. "We never stopped," he said as he looked Buffy square in the eyes. "Q suspended time."
"I guess I'm glad you told me to hold off," Buffy said. "Who knows what would have happened if I hadn't if he has that kind of power."
"Agreed," Picard said.
Suddenly everyone but Dawn and Riker appeared, alive and unharmed.
"Where's Commander Riker and Ensign Summers?" Tasha wondered.
"The Commander was with us," Worf said. "Ensign Summers, we don't know."
"Commander Riker must still be on the planet," Geordi said. "We were under attack by... by animal things..."
"Animal things?" Picard asked.
"You sure you don't mean demons?" Buffy wondered.
"Not really sure," Geordi said. "They were animal looking in uniform... Which I think Data could probably explain better, sir."
"You may find it aesthetically displeasing, sir. I could just file a computer report on that..." Data said.
"Sir, the important thing right now is why are Commander Riker and Ensign Summers missing?" Troi asked.
"Understood, Counselor, but Will and Dawn is almost certainly safe..." he saw Buffy's expression... "at least "safe" in a physical sense. Q has an interest in them... in fact, Q's entire visit has something to do with them both."
And the reason for that, sir...?" Data wondered.
"Sadly, we don't know," Buffy said.
Meanwhile, we must proceed with our rescue mission..." Picard said as he noticed Buffy's expression again. He tapped his head and Buffy nodded.
'Don't worry, Buffy. We will get her back. Yours and her story has told me how much you care for her. Which means she like Commander Riker means a lot to all of us and not because of yours or her positions in Section 10 either."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
On the desert planet Riker managed to find himself a little shade. As he sat, leaning back against a rock, he started to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
Riker looked at Dawn and saw her walking toward him. As he watched her, he saw a changed demeanor, and realization spread across his face. "He did to you what he did to me," he said.
"Yes," Dawn said. "Powers of the Q. He was showing me these alternate timelines. Some centered around me, some around Buffy and some around our friends. It's amazing how different each universe is. And it's all accessible by a combination of Q powers and the Key. Between the two I can travel the multiverse as well as travel through time. It's so tempting."
"So why don't you?"
Riker and Dawn looked around and saw Q.
"Certainly, you both understand that at this moment you can send yourselves back to your ship... or to Earth, or change your shape and become anything else you want to be..." Q said.
"What do you need, Q?" Riker asked.
"Need?" Q wondered.
"You want something from us, Q. Desperately! What is it?" Riker asked.
"Want something from you foolish, fragile, non-entities? Careful, Riker, you're beginning to sound like your captain."
"That doesn't explain me," Dawn said. "From what you showed me, I'm not some fragile, non-entity. So why me? You haven't answered Commander Riker's question or mine."
"We have tried to offer you both a gift beyond all other gifts...!" Q said angrily.
"... Out of the "goodness" of your heart?" Riker asked.
"After Farpoint, I returned to where we exist... the Q Continuum." Q said.
"Which means exactly what?" Dawn wondered.
"The limitless dimensions of the multiverse in which we exist," Q explained. "We could hardly be capable of acting in ways that seem so astonishing to you... if we were limited to the primitive dimensions in which you live, dimensions which would make us prisoners of time and space."
"What do you mean by we?" Riker wondered.
"In our Continuum the terms we and I mean much the same," Q said.
"Do you understand what he is talking about?" Dawn asked.
"No," Riker said.
"Of course, you both don't, and you never will until you both become one of us." Q said.
"Until?... Would you mind going over that again?" Riker asked.
Q nodded. "If you both will stop interrupting me. This really isn't the time to teach you the true nature of the universe. At Farpoint, we saw you as savages only, and thought to frighten you into scurrying back to your solar system. We discovered instead, that you are an unusual creature in your own limited ways... ways which in time may not be so limited."
"That's what you are afraid of," Dawn said. "That we'll evolve."
Q nodded. "The human compulsion. And, unfortunately, for us, a force that will grow stronger century after century, eon after eon..."
"Eons! Have you any idea how far we'll advance?" Riker asked.
"Beyond them," Dawn said. "That's why you were showing me the other versions of me."
Q nodded. "And so, we must know more about the human condition. At first, we were only selecting you, Riker. Then the Key, Inanna, Dawn came into your time and we selected her as well to become part of the Q... to bring that human need and hunger to us so that we may understand it."
"I... suppose you mean that as a compliment, Q... or maybe it's our limited minds..." Riker said as he stood up. "... but... to become part of you?! I don't even like you!"
Q looked at Riker, seeming amused.
"You're going to miss me!" Q said as he made a sweeping gesture and disappeared. In front of them appeared the entire bridge crew as well as Wesley standing in front of a firing squad.
"Oh, no!" Troi said.
"Come on, not again!" Geordi said.
"What's happening, Commander Riker?" Wesley asked. "I was sitting in school..."
"My phaser's gone. Worf, are you armed?" Tasha asked.
Worf checked and saw his phaser was gone. He looked at Buffy's holster and saw she did not have her scythe. He, Tasha and Buffy move to place themselves between the bridge crew and the danger.
Picard moved quickly to Riker and Dawn. "Where is Q? If you have any answer to this, Number One..." He was interrupted by one of the animal soldiers lifting a bugle, blowing an attack call. There was a snarl and a roar from an animal soldier with sergeant's stripes and the line of soldiers advance, bayonets leveled at the bridge crew.
Buffy moved toward an animal solder, dodged a bayonet as another slashed her in the back with a bayonet.
Dawn can see that blood was flowing from the wound. "No!" she snapped her fingers and the entire bridge crew, Riker, herself and Buffy disappeared.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Dawn and Buffy stood in the white expanse and Dawn smiled at her sister. "Oh, my dear, dear sister. I know what lies in your heart. For it is what lies in mine. To go home."
Buffy was confused, one moment she had been mortally wounded. The next she was here and Dawn was saying something about going home. "Dawn, what are you talking about?"
Dawn smiled as she snapped her fingers and in a flash of light they were gone.
0 – Year 2001 – 0
In a flash of light Buffy and Dawn appeared in their home in Sunnydale.
"Dawn, where are we?" Buffy asked.
"We're home." Dawn said, smiling.
"Is this real or a fabrication?" Buffy wondered.
"It's real." Dawn said. "We're really home."
Willow came down the stairs into the living room and stopped short as she saw Buffy and Dawn. "Am I dreaming?" she asked.
"No, Willow," Dawn said. "You are not dreaming. We are here."
Willow smiled and ran over and hugged Buffy and then Dawn. "What happened?"
"It's a long story." Buffy said.
Two hours later Buffy and Dawn were wrapping up the story of their future exploits.
"Wow," Willow said. "You guys have been through a lot."
"And as much as I hate to say it, we should be getting back there." Buffy said. "People will wonder what happened to us."
"What up about us?" Willow wondered. "You just want to abandon your friends?"
Buffy looked at Dawn and sighed, "Will, I said goodbye a few months ago. I never expected to see you or Xander or anyone ever again. I wish you all could go with us. But you all have lives here. Our lives are there now."
Willow sighed and nodded, "What'll we do without you?" she wondered.
Buffy looked to Dawn and saw realization dawning on her baby sister's face. "The hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live. For us," she and Dawn said simultaneously.
Willow wiped a tear from her face and nodded, "I will, I promise. I will tell my children and they will tell their children of their brave aunts who went to the future. Who knows maybe someday somehow we may see each other again?"
Buffy went over to a painting and took it down to reveal a wall safe. She opened it and pulled out the deed to the house. "Willow. Maybe this will help." She signed the deed and handed it to Willow. "It's for the house. It's yours."
Willow looked at Buffy and then at the deed and nodded, "I will pass it down through the generations and hopefully my descendants will return it to you."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
On the bridge of the Enterprise, Riker was using the Q powers to give his friends what he thought they wanted. "And Worf, who wants nothing..." Riker said.
"Except honor and my duty fulfilled," Worf said as Buffy and Dawn appeared in a flash next to him.
"Proud warrior Worf, without a single tie to his own kind..." Riker said.
There was a flash and a Klingon warrioress appeared at Worf's feet. Her eyes flash as she looked up at Worf, an arm encircled him at the knees - her other arm held a Klingon weapon. As she looked around, she saw Buffy. Moving with surprising speed, she came to her feet and lashed out with her weapon. Worf moved quickly, he took the blow intended for Buffy, and slammed the warrioress down. In Klingon tradition, she flattened herself to the floor and crawled, snarling to embrace Worf's feet.
Worf whirled to face Riker. "No! She is from a world now alien to me. I have no place in my life for this now!"
Wesley, who had been made an adult by Riker, approached the first officer. "Mister Riker..." he said. "... it's too soon for this..."
"If it's because your mother objects..." Riker said.
"No, I'd just like to get there on my own. Honest!" Wesley said.
Picard looked at both Riker and Dawn pleased to see the same realization on their faces.
"How did you know, sir? I feel like such... such an idiot!" Riker said.
"As do I," Dawn said as she looked at Buffy.
"Quite right, you both should!" Picard said.
"But it was... such a pleasure to have been able to do those things." Riker said.
Picard turned to face Q. "It's all over Q. You have no further business here."
"Human, you have just destroyed yourself...!" Q said.
"But only after you've paid off your wager, Q." Picard said.
"I recall no wager!" Q objected.
Buffy laughed, "I seem to recall otherwise."
"I'm sure your fellow Q remember you agreed to never trouble our species again. Just as they're aware you've failed to tempt two humans to join you. So, Q, I strongly suspect you have some explaining of your own to do..." Picard said.
Q suddenly disappeared in flash of white restoring everything Riker had done and putting people back in their original positions.
"Extraordinary! Q sought to discover the distinguishing characteristic of humanity and never learned what Coleridge said: "It must be the possession of a soul within us that makes the difference." Picard said.
Buffy smiles, "You would be correct, Captain. I have dealt with beings without a soul, they are evil creatures. A soul makes us human, or in Worf's case - Klingon. It gives us a conscience, makes us who we are."
Picard nodded, "Does that include your sister?"
Buffy smiled and looked at Dawn, "Yes. In fact, I believe she has the purest soul of anyone I know, myself included."
Dawn smiled and hugged her older sister.
"Sir... we show the same "hole" in time again. Our instruments say we've just now beamed up from our rescue mission." Geordi said.
Buffy and Dawn looked at each other. They realized their travel through time had caused them to return a whole day later than when they had left.
"How can the Q handle time and space so well, and us so badly?" Data asked.
"Perhaps we'll discover someday that time and space is simpler than the human equation." Picard says. "No coordinates laid in, Number One?"
"Uh... yes, sir." Riker said as he turned toward Geordi. "You have my coordinates, Mister La Forge."
Geordi gave Wesley a look, and a nod.
Wesley called it out eagerly. "Zero-zero-eight, Mark, three-three-nine, sir."
Picard nodded, "Engage!"
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Dawn looked out the window of her quarters at space when she saw the reflection of a person in the window. She turned and looked toward the man. "Who are you?"
"I am your brother, Inanna," the man said. "I am Utu."
"You are Tkon," Dawn said.
"Yes and no," Utu said. "I am an Ancient. Q was incorrect when he said that we never came to this galaxy. We did we just did not have the same destiny in this universe that we did in that one. Eventually our people ascended or evolved as you call it. Unlike the Q we generally do not interfere in mortals' lives. But you are a special case. The Q powers are gone. I wish I could remove the Key but you must keep it safe. That said for everything you have gone through, sister. I have decided to give you something." He snapped his fingers and there was a bright flash and Faith Lehane appeared there.
Faith looked around confused and then she spotted Dawn. "What the heck. Red said you and B were in the future. Am I dead?"
"You took her out of time?" Dawn said.
"Yes and no," Utu said. "She was taken seconds before her death. She gave her life in closing the dimensional breach in Sunnydale. I have given her a chance at a new life, here with you."