Q fought them as the walked down the hall to Cal's brig. His tempers raging now that he was faced with the man who had tortured him for hours and laughed at his misery. "Cal, you are just the slug I was looking for. I'm going to break you like the worm you are you pathetic targ." He fought against the grip the two men had on him as they walked him to the brig. "I'm going to crush you for what you did to Janeway."
Cal grabbed the back of his shirt and removed him from the grip of his two men. "And as I recall I didn't withhold my best from you the last time, Q. Care to try your hand at me again?" He spun Q around so that the two men were facing, his hands gripped tight to the collar of his shirt. For a moment Cal let him go smiling at the dark eyes 'mortal'. "You told me if you had your powers you would crush me, well here is your second chance Q, crush me." Cal spread his arms out giving Q the opening he needed to attack. When Q did lunge forward to strike him however Cal punched him hard in the chest, right where Q had been struck by the consul burst. He struck Q hard throwing him down onto the ground and laying him flat. "Some revenge Q." Cal laughed nodding over to the men holding Janeway. They moved ready to throw Janeway as harshly as Cal has tossed Q, one of his men tossed her in after nearly making the Captain fall down but no sooner had she recovered herself Cal beat his man across the face. "Don't hurt her." Cal growled at the man before turning back to Janeway and holding out a hand to her. "I hope you are unharmed." She glared back at him and standing to the front of the cell and challenging him to try her a second time. If he could fight Q while he was already hurt then she was curious to how well he would fair against an unharmed starfleet captain. Likely not as well. "I'll leave you alone then, raise a level ten force field around this cell."
As Cal walked away Janeway stood there watching him feeling that same hate Q had felt, that same drive for revenge. But unlike Q she wasn't going to stoop so low, even if she had every right to want revenge. Q sat back up holding a hand over his chest where Cal had struck him, his breath getting caught in the back of his throat as Kathryn watched their captors vanish through the brig doors. "I'm alright by the way." Q finally gasped trying to be serious but feeling more sarcastic than anything. He had just tried to stand up for her and taken a punch to his chest, right where he had been struck by electrical discharge from his consul blowing out. Pulling off his science officer colored jacket he ran a hand over the chard slate blue fabric of the undershirt and felt that painful jolt run through his chest again. "Thanks for asking." Q's voice sounded a little more pissy now.
Janeway turned to face him, looking over at his chest, his shirt stained with blood. Walking to his side she crouched down next to him as he sat up and curled in on himself leaning forward. "Let me take a look." Finally she decided to notice he was in pain, pain inflicted on him for standing up for her. Pulling up on his shirt Q slapped her hand back and turned away from her a little more. "And you accuse me of being prude." He liked to throw that word around at her just because she wasn't always in the mood to cater to his needs. Because after being a captain all day long, trying to get her crew home in one piece, and being a mother wasn't work enough she had to throw herself at him at the end of the night when she could hardly keep her eyes open.
Q looked back at her snapping with that sassy tone of his, "I'm not being prude, Prudence Princess." Lifting up his own shirt so Janeway couldn't see he looked down at the ugly black mark ripped across his chest, almost dead center there was a burn through the skin showing a layer of burned muscles and was that his sternum? Q leaned forward a little more covering the injury with his hand and feeling like he was going to throw up. He had never been injured this badly before. Sure a cut here and a scrape there but this was...horrifying. Good thing the burn from the energy burst had mostly 'cooked' his wound so it wasn't bleeding that much but it hurt like hell and twice as much as hell would hurt since Cal had planted his fist firmly on the exposed muscles and apparently...bone. Q gagged again, after working with the doc and fixing up injuries worse than this he couldn't take the sight of his own, what did you call this? Hole in his chest? "It's pride Kathy, I don't need you to pity me any more than you do already."
Janeway grabbed his shoulders a little harder than she might have wanted and pushed him back down against the floor she he was looking up at her now, as pretty as she might have always been to him he wasn't going to 'melt' in her hands right now. She didn't have him wrapped around her finger anymore. "Well put aside your pride for now Q, I'm not going to pity you I'm trying to help you."
"Like you don't pity me every moment of every day? Admit it Kathy, you feel sorry for me, I'm pathetic, I'm mortal because of my feelings for you and you know you don't feel the same for me. If we didn't have Amelia and Emily would you even bother to have stayed with me this long?"
She didn't have time for this right now, if he wanted to be a drama queen when they got back to Voyager then she would sit down and have that conversation with him then. Still he made a valid point and Kathryn had to ask herself the same question. Was she with Q because she loved him or was she with Q for the girls? Janeway didn't linger on the thought too long before pulling up on his shirt again. "I don't pity you Q, if I did would I have said yes yo your marriage proposal?" Saying those words out loud confirmed anything she might have felt a moment ago. No, Janeway wouldn't have let herself get roped into a doomed marriage, even for the sake of Amelia having her father with her. She hadn't loved Q so much as admired him when she had gotten pregnant but she had come to have a certain fondness for him. The real question she kept asking herself was that fondness actually love?
"I don't know, did you say yes to my proposal?" He nodded to her hand noting the lack of a ring on her finger. Certainly she said she she didn't wear it on the bridge just to be safe, with being in the delta quadrant the risk of being attacked or encountering problems was always a high probability, but even off the bridge she never had it on. In fact she might have forgotten she even had that damn ring until he had pointed it out to her now and Q had put a lot of thought into having it replicated. Maybe he wasn't her perfect Mark that she left behind on Earth but dammit, he loved her just as much as Mark ever could.
"I left the ring in my top drawer until we get married, then according to starfleet regulation I can wear it on the bridge or anywhere I like." She reminded him, but it begged to raise another question of his.
"That's right, when was the last time we actually talked about a wedding? Planned when we were getting married or who would marry us? I think the first and the last time it was brought up was a week after I asked you. You told me you were busy and we could talk about it later." Q hung onto his shirt so she couldn't attempt to pull it back up again. He would rather die than have her continue to 'lie' to him and he didn't want her to have to lie to herself to make everything 'alright'. "Tell me this Captain." It was a rare moment that Q called her Captain, he did it for two reasons, because he was showing honest respect or because he was hinting that she didn't deserve to be called by name.
"Q." She responded trying to make him stop, just for a moment.
"Kathy?"
"Q." She growled back not wanting to play one of his games right now.
"Kathy." He snapped back "We can do this all day it's not going to work...unless you moan a little, or say my name slightly louder." He joked, what else did he have right now? He was probably going to die here in the cell being told the woman he loved didn't feel the same way about him, the human he had tossed his powers and immortality aside for.
"And this is why I don't have serious conversations with you, I can't. You turn everything into a childish argument Q. I can't stand that about you."
"Then leave." He growled back, all tone of playfulness lost from his voice. If she wanted a serious conversation now then she was getting one. "If I gave you the option to take back the answer you gave me on Christmas, if I told you I wouldn't care that you changed your mind? What would that answer be now? And don't lie to me Kathy, I know when I have been played the fool. I love you, that won't change, but because I love you i know sometimes the best thing you can do for someone you love is just let them go. Especially if I am in the way of you being truly happy. So what would your answer be now?"
Right now still wasn't the time to be having this conversation. Letting go of his shirt she sat back letting out a sigh. "Honestly?" Janeway paused a moment. "I don't know." Q set his head back against the ground, as far as he was concerned that was a no. "It doesn't matter right now, Q you are bleeding everywhere, look at your hands." He had been so desperate to keep his injury concealed from her that he had gotten his own hands covered in his blood. Q couldn't help but feel it was an appropriate wound, after all his heart was breaking and the injury had been fairly close to his heart.
He had to admit that answer hurt him, it hurt him more than this gaping hole in his chest, well it wasn't a gaping home. Luckily there was exposed bone there to stop his lungs from falling out or his heart being used as a decorative piece of this cell floor. "I am happy you are being honest, since we are sharing our honest feelings you know when I said I thought your short hair was attractive after you got it cut?" He looked back at her, Kathy had cut her hair length horribly short because Amelia had gotten accustom to pulling her locks whens he got upset...and he had ended up nearly dying via suffocation one too many times. Her hair had grown out a little since then, it was a decent length now, not quite shoulder length but still better than that mess from before. "Well, I hate it, you look stupid." He was just grasping at straws now, although he did hate when her hair was shorter, it was a nice length now. Why was the length of her hair going to be the last thing on his mind before he died?
"Really Q?"
"If you cut me, do I not bleed." He whispered to himself ignoring her a little more. Janeway finally surprised him while he let his guard down and pulled his shirt up pausing to look at his injury. From the look on her face she only confirmed what he had already known, he wasn't in good shape, he wasn't going to make it. "You don't have to say it Kathy, I already know. I'm the medical officer on this trip after all. This is the end of the line for me, it's been good knowing you, it was fun, while it lasted. Tell Emily and Amelia I..I died a brave man."
"If you start talking like that you will die, I'll be the one to send you there too." She threatened grabbing his jacket, he needed immediate medical attention, something they didn't have.
"Don't give me false hope Kathryn, you need to get out of here and go on, it shouldn't be too hard without me. You have made it clear these past few months just how you really feel about me." Q winced grabbing his chest and curling up on himself. "I don't know what hurts more, the hold in my chest or the hole in my heart."
"Don't be so dramatic..."
"Dramatic? I gave up unlimited power, immortality, my freedom, all of it for you. What do I get in return? Heartache, pain, suffering, DEATH. Don't get me wrong Kathryn, if you would be happier without me then that is what I would want for you." His voice started getting quiet, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. She had to keep him conscious. "I just want you to be happy."
Propping his head up in her lap she slapped the side of his face a little. "Q, stay with me here." His eyes flickered open for a moment as he seemed to look up at her again before he went on rambling, making no sense. "Q if you want to keep yelling at me you can do that all you like." Pressing her fingers against his necks he tried taking his pulse but it was so slow she thought for a painful moment that he had already died. "Your pulse is getting weak. Q you have to stay with me." She slapped him lightly on the face again while his head lulled to one side. "Q." Kathryn balled up his jacket and slipped it under his head so she could run to the front of her cell. "I need help here." If Cal had gone through the trouble of tracking them down he would go through the trouble of keeping them alive. He needed them if his idea was to get a hold of their daughter. After all, didn't he need the parents to scream so the fawn would come running?
It took some time waiting before one of Cal's men came to the cell to get her. Turning the shield off he grabbed the captain, two of his friends armed and ready to fire if she tried anything. "Cal needs to see you."
"Tell him to send someone to help Q, he's going to die."
"That's not my problem."
Kathryn pulled back on her arm glaring at the man trying to round her up. "It will be your problem if he dies." That was a threat.
"I'll send someone to get him then." The man pulled her out of the cell and put the force field back up. "Follow me, or I'll shoot you, will it also be my problem if you die?"
