Gaining An Appreciation For A Brassicaceae
Summary: Q's visits, while never welcomed, often leave Picard with a new perspective. Humor, mainly, with a bit of Picard/Crusher banter at the end. Set after First Contact.
Rating: PG
A/N: This story is for Genuka who answered an offer I made many Christmases ago to write a story for anyone who asked. She wanted a story where Q and Picard argued. I was never completely satisfied with it, but it's just been gathering dust on my computer for ages.
A/N II: There was no beta reader for this story, so excuse any typos or grammatical errors.
A/N III: I hadn't watched any of this for ages at the time I wrote the story. I relied on an online timeline for the events. If things are wonky, just blame Q.
Disclaimer: I'm tired of writing disclaimers. There really isn't a need, is there?
Looking out of his Ready Room window, Captain Jean-Luc Picard mused over the day's reports. The Enterprise was on a rare excursion to Earth, and most of the crew were planet-side, visiting friends or relatives. He planned to visit later himself, but the tranquil sight of his home-world did little to ease his mood.
Things had changed.
His lipped twitched at the thought. Things always changed. It was the nature of time, of life. But the changes to the Federation, to Star Fleet? How had things come to this point?
The Dominion War had been the turning point, he supposed. So much devastation, so many ships and crews wiped out, the attacks on Earth itself, dozens of Federation planets ravaged. And the death toll – it was still staggering to contemplate.
Of course, as with all major events, the origins sprung roots years before. Specifically, it started with the Borg.
Star Fleet, realizing it faced an intractable enemy with superior firepower, had built a warship. And the success of the Defiant during the Dominion War had led Star Fleet to create an entire Defiant-class, and now every new starship contained upgraded armor and weapons refined over the war.
The Federation – founded on the principles of peace, diplomacy and cooperation – now fielded the most powerful armada in living memory in the Alpha Quadrant. It was a change Picard had never hoped to see.
He wasn't a blind idealist; he'd seen his share of battles, had his share of victories. There were times when you had to fight, but it was always, always, the last resort. The Klingon Empire would need a generation to rebuild; most likely the Romulans would take nearly as long. And the Cardassians – they were little more than a footnote in history now.
What was the point in turning Star Fleet, once the premier research fleet in existence, into a military force? Oh, the Founders were still on the other side of the wormhole, and maybe they would return to attack again some day. But Picard feared the Federation was shifting diplomacy to a secondary consideration, and an entire generation of officers were learning to be fighters first.
It seemed an end of an era, in a way.
Again, his lips twitched. If his love of history had taught him anything, it was his thoughts were hardly unique. What would have Kirk thought of the Federation of now compared to his day?
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
Letting out a sigh, Picard ordered his customary cup of tea before returning to brooding. And he was brooding, he admitted to himself. Whatever happened to their mission to explore? What had been the last new world they'd seen?
Well, the Dominion and the latest Borg attack did need some attention, he pointed out mentally. I need to snap out of this mood.
"Oh, please, do, Jean-Luc. Your thoughts are positively boring."
With a quick jerk, he turned around with an annoyed frown. "Q! What are you doing here?"
"Do I need a reason to visit? What's wrong with stopping by to chat with an old friend?" Q asked, limbs sprawled on the Ready Room sofa.
"We are not, under any circumstances, friends," Picard stated, moving to sit behind his desk. "Again, I ask: What are you doing here?"
"Really, Jean-Luc, you sound almost rude."
Picard fought to keep his temper under control. Q craved attention; playing into his schemes only encouraged him. "Perish the thought."
"Sarcasm? I'm so disappointed in you. Where's the grand speech?"
"Fresh out today," he said with a forced smile.
"And here you were whining," Q stated, giving him a knowing grin, "mentally, about a decline in diplomacy. Look at how you treat me! Not a sign of diplomacy anywhere. Not even an offer of a drink."
"As you're so fond of pointing out, you're beyond such needs."
"Still, it would be nice if you at least offered," Q moaned.
"Can I offer you a drink or something to eat, Q?" Picard said with more patience than he felt.
"Of course not! Absorb energy through the breakdown of organic molecules? How primitive," Q snorted. "Not to mention the messy side effects."
The captain waved toward the recently vacated window. "Well, feel free to be on your way to something more your style."
"Jean-Luc, I'm Q. The cosmos is my style," he said, buffing his nails on his jumpsuit.
Picard took a long sip of his tea. Keeping his temper around Q wasn't appearing to bore the annoyance away. "If there's a point to today's visit, could we please reach it? I do have work to do, and being a mere mortal, I can't put it off for all eternity."
"Tsk, tsk. Behave or you won't get your gift," Q said with a grin that sent shivers down Picard's back.
"What type of gift, Q? Are you planning to bring the Borg again?"
Q gave him a look of bewilderment. "Me? I didn't do that."
"The first time we encountered the Borg …"
"That was your fault, Jean-Luc." Q stood up quickly, suddenly appearing on the corner of Picard's desk. "I'm not the one who blew up a Borg ship in the past and left little Borg-cicles on Earth."
"What?"
"You blew up the ship. The drones survived. The drones were revived in the past," Q said, pantomiming the entire explanation. "They called home. Past Borg hear from future Borg on his little, inconsequential blue dot in the Alpha Quadrant. Borg send ships to investigate."
"You cannot imply I caused this!" Picard snapped as he stood up. All thoughts of ignoring Q faded as his anger grew.
"I can do anything I want. I'm Q," Q said simply. "It's not my fault you humans can't understand anything other than linear time. Now Bennie – that's Benjamin Sisko, to you – now there was a human who had the potential to understand it. Although, if you want to be technical, he's not really human," he conceded.
"Q … "
"And you should be thanking me for not introducing you to those wormhole aliens. Past, present and future are meaningless to me, of course, but at least I understand what they mean. You'd be lost trying to have a conversation with those weirdos."
"We are not toys for your amusement!"
"Relax, Jean-Luc, or you'll lose what little hair you have left from stress."
Picard ignored the dig as he continued. "You have no right to threaten us because you consider us lesser beings."
"Like you're one to talk," Q said, looking up with a sly sneer.
"If you want to give me another lecture on human history, you can ..."
"Who said anything about the past? What about that thing?" he demanded, pointing to the aquarium in the Ready Room wall. "You don't mind imprisoning that aquatic creature."
"It's hardly the same!"
Q's smile grew wider. "How would you know? Perhaps you need to reconsider."
Before Picard could answer, he found himself suddenly underwater. He frantically spun around in the water, trying to get his bearings. It only took a moment to realize he was in Livingston's aquarium. Worse, Q had shrunk him to a few centimeters tall so he'd easily fit within the fish tank.
Picard instinctively started swimming toward the surface, to fresh air, but he stopped in mid-stroke. The computer controlled the environmental conditions of the tank automatically; the water reached the top of the container. There was no surface from which he could reach air.
"Oh, relax," Q said impatiently, bending over to stare through the front of the aquarium. "What's the fun in drowning you? Just breathe."
Warily, Picard felt along his collar for any signs of gills.
"I said breathe!"
His lungs ready to burst, Picard slowly breathed in a small amount of water. He fully expected the burning sensation of saltwater, but instead was met with a rather pleasant feeling. He took a deeper breath. It smelled vaguely of lilacs.
His immediate survival assured, Picard twisted his body to face the glass. He adopted the most authoritative position possible while floating in a fish tank.
"Q! Get me out of here," is what Picard barked, but what came out was more of a, "blup, blurp blupple blurp."
"Oh, Jean-Luc! The things you say," Q said coquettishly.
"Blurp! Blurrlpll blurlp blup!" Picard bubbled angrily.
Q gave him a shocked look. "Really! I thought Star Fleet discouraged language like that. You might be right about their declining standards."
Picard forced his breathing – if that's what you could call it – under control. The faster he breathed, the less pleasant the sensation of salt water washing through his lungs felt. As he was getting himself under control, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he followed Livingston's approach as he swam contently through his tank.
Livingston – a lion fish whose spikes were venomous. Picard wasn't entirely sure how dangerous the venom was to a fully-grown human, but he also wasn't in any mood to see if he still qualified as "fully-grown."
"Blupple! Blubble, blerp!" Picard bubbled urgently.
"I'm not sure I'm talking to you, after what you said before," Q pouted, turning his back on him, crossing his arms petulantly.
Swearing to himself and blurping to the universe at large, Picard headed to the relative safety of the coral and seaweed in the center of the tank. Livingston, for his part, continued to swim with fishy oblivion.
"Oh, really!" Q snapped as he snapped his fingers. Picard reappeared in his Ready Room. Water ran off his body, thoroughly drenching his carpet. Half-expecting to be coughing up seawater, he took a tentative breath before taking a look back at the tank. Despite all the water still coursing off his body, the aquarium appeared unchanged.
"What the hell was the point of that?" Picard demanded. "What sick game are you playing this time?"
"Game? Who said anything about games? You were just complaining about having nothing to explore, so I gave you a singularly unique experience, something no human has ever had since your ancient ancestors slithered from that ocean of yours. What do you do? Do you explore? No, you yell at me. Me!"
"Well, if you're done with your gifts, I'd like you to leave now."
"Oh, that wasn't your gift. That started about a billion years ago. I found a lovely little class B itinerant pulsar, gave it a nudge here, a poke there."
"I have work to do," Picard continued, completely ignoring Q's hurt look.
"Do you know how long I had to look to find just the perfect one? Well, at least you're more civilized than Bennie. Did you know he actually punched me the one time I visited him?"
"I can understand the urge," Picard said angrily, squelching across the room to his desk.
"Oh, don't be upset by his nickname. I don't like him more than you, Johnnie," Q said, giving him a sad part on the shoulder. "But you don't hold a candle to Kathy."
"Who?" he asked in open confusion.
"Oh, you might know her as Captain Janeway."
"The captain of Voyager? You've been in contact with them? If you know where they are," Picard said eagerly.
"I know everything, Johnnie."
"Then prove it! Bring them home. If you are as powerful as you claim to be, you can return them safely."
"Why would I want to do that?" Q gave him a level look. "Isn't the mission of Star Fleet to explore? To discover strange, new worlds? Trust me, the Delta Quadrant has plenty of those! Think of all the things her crew is learning."
"But they're too far away. They can't get reinforcements or help if they run into trouble. They'll die before they can return home!"
"Well, that is the downside to being mortal – you don't get out of it alive."
"And you call yourself a superior being," Picard said in disgust.
"Again, who are you to insult me? Forget the fish – he's already forgotten you," Q said. "What about the way you treat those minions of yours? You're not as superior as you think."
Picard didn't answer, knowing nothing he said would get this bothersome creature out of his office before he was ready to leave.
Q smiled at him. "Let's take that vegetation of yours."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Oh, if only you meant that!"
Picard refused to acknowledge the statement.
"You know who I'm talking about. The brassica. The cruciferous one," Q prodded. "The dopey guy, inferiority complex, overactive holosuite life."
Picard leaned back in his chair with a frown. "Are you, by any chance, referring to Lieutenant Barclay?"
"You wanted to call him 'Broccoli' again, I admit it."
Letting out a short sigh, he picked up his cup of tea. "That was an unfortunate slip of the tongue. I regretted it then, and I still do. He proved himself to be a very adequate engineer."
"Oh, adequate is he? You've proven my point."
Again, Picard refused to give him the satisfaction of replying.
"Do you have any idea what he's been up to lately? You don't, I know. And I mean I really know."
"Q, as a mere human, I cannot hope to keep up with the careers of every officer who ever served on the Enterprise."
"If you say, mon capitaine, if you say. But ask yourself this one thing: Did you dismiss his potential because he annoyed you?" Giving Picard a wink, Q disappeared. A disembodied voice called out, "Enjoy your present!"
After waiting a long time to see if Q would come back, Picard turned to his computer. A quick search revealed Barclay was currently on Earth, working on something called Pathfinder. His scan showed the project was headed by Admiral Paris.
His son was on Voyager. I should tell him Q has been in contact with Captain Janeway. At least we know they're still alive. It's been some time since the last contact with them.
It only took a moment to establish a communication link with Paris' office, but there was a short delay before a junior officer answered. The young Bajoran woman obviously had been laughing just before the call, and Picard noticed the drink in her hand. "Admiral Paris' office, this is Ensign Drista," she started, nearly choking as she stared at the screen.
I'm sopping wet, Picard realized in embarrassment. C'est la vie. This couldn't wait.
"Yes, this is Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise. I need to speak to the admiral, please."
"I, uh, I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not sure that's possible." A large cheer sounded from somewhere else in the office. The ensign gave him a big grin. "We just made contact with Voyager in the Delta Quadrant! The communication ended not five minutes ago."
"Really? That's wonderful news. How did you manage that?"
"It was Reg, sir. Lieutenant Barclay," she corrected quickly. "He directed a tachyon beam at a class B itinerant pulsar that was moving into just the right position …"
Q! He did something helpful?
"… It was a stroke of genius. I believe he was on the Enterprise on his previous assignment," Drista finished.
"Yes, he was," he said. Reg Barclay was responsible for one of the greatest achievements in recent years, a fact Picard considered closely. Perhaps Q had a point. "Let Admiral Paris know that Reg is an excellent officer. I'm not sure I emphasized that enough in my last evaluation."
"Yes, sir. Anything else?"
"No, enjoy your party," he said with a parting smile. "You deserve it."
"Thank you, Captain Picard," she said, obviously debating whether or not to point something out.
Already aware he was drenched, he ended the call. As he stood, more water drained from his body, in defiance of all logic. As always, Q treated the physical laws of the universe as mere suggestions.
Heading onto the bridge, he held his hand out to stop the comments he knew would be directed at him.
"It was Q, Number One," he said quickly. "Another one of his pranks."
"Sir," Riker began after a shocked silence.
"I know, I assure you," Picard said levelly. "Oh, arrange for a congratulatory message to be sent to Lieutenant Reg Barclay. He's currently assigned to Pathfinder."
"I know, sir," he beamed. "Deanna was visiting him while she was on Earth. We just heard the news. Uh, Captain …"
"You have the bridge, Commander. I'm going to change."
"That's probably a good idea, sir."
The turbolift opened on the bridge, and Dr. Beverly Crusher exited and immediately dropped her head and turned around.
"Doctor," Picard said calmly as he boarded the lift. She rejoined him, doing a poor job of keeping her amusement hidden.
"Captain," she replied. "In case you haven't noticed …"
"A parting gift from Q," he explained, his tone and posture indicating that nothing more was to be said of his current predicament.
She smirked at him until the lift halted. LaForge and Data were talking excitedly in the hallway, but both paused when they looked in.
"Captain, you appear …" Data began, but stopped when Geordie grabbed his arm.
"We'll take the next lift," the engineer said.
Picard barked out the command for the lift to resume.
"Computer, this is Chief Medical Officer Beverly Crusher. Emergency medical override – don't stop this lift until it reaches its destination."
"Acknowledged."
Picard started to point out that her command would create a permanent record in the ship's logs, but decided he didn't care. While the water in the aquarium had been quite comfortable, he was getting decidedly chilled. He could add a note to the logs that she was running some test or another. Recognizing she was not going to hold her laughter in for much longer, he preempted the joke coming at his expense.
"Do you recall Lieutenant Barclay?"
"Reg? Of course I do. He's not someone you forget easily."
"True. Especially now," Picard said in conspiratorial whisper. "He developed a method to contact Captain Janeway and the Voyager crew."
"Really?"
"I just got done talking to Admiral Paris' office," he explained, pausing when her smile disappeared and was replaced by a look of horror.
"What?" he asked, uncertain he wanted to know what affected her so strongly. His mood wasn't helped by the various expressions playing over her face.
"Jean-Luc, if you were bothered by the male-pattern baldness, you should have come to me. I'd have done a better job," she finally managed to get out with a chuckle.
His hand immediately reached for the top of his head, his anger rising as he felt the vegetation. Yanking it off, he realized it was a large blade of a variegated seaweed in shades of green and lilac. It was far too big to have been this size in Livingston's aquarium; Q had enlarged it when he'd returned Picard to normal size. He'd also arranged so Picard never noticed the cold, slimy growth was on his head.
"Merde."
The End